


Evil

by coeurastronaute



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, the ftwd story, zombies and such
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coeurastronaute/pseuds/coeurastronaute
Summary: Elyza was happy to live her life, or what was left of it, alone and working on saving the world. Her plan went a little awry when she ran into a stranger who drives her crazy.





	1. Chapter 1

Run. That’s all she can do. Her footsteps echo through the alleyway, but she doesn’t stop when her breathing grows louder than the metronome of her heels. 

Alicia wants to look back. She wants to see if anyone else she loves is behind her or… But it wouldn’t matter, she’s put so much distance between her and the ambush. When Travis slammed himself against the door, her mother shoved her from the back and told her not to look. To run. To get back to the boat. She’s not quite certain which way to go, not with the crack to her head from the glass of the window she was thrown through. But she runs. She doesn’t stop.

All she can do is run. Her thighs burn and her lungs strain, burning with the effort, but still, she runs, weaving past obstacles as best she can, bouncing off walkers and trying to keep her footing. 

She sees the alley coming to an end with a tall metal fence and elects to shove herself into a building, quickly sliding around the counter and looking through the glass to see if the street is clear. 

Try as she might, she can’t figure out where she is in the city, but her mothers words, the command – RUN– it thumps through her head with each beat of her heart. Fear and worry occupy more of her blood stream than platelets. 

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” she push her hand into her hair, grabbing her scalp as her other hand goes to her chest. Catching her breath isn’t an option. 

Alicia! the radio on her hip crackles in the quiet. 

“Mom!” she answers instantly. “Where are you guys? Are you okay?” 

_Are you– I can’t– We made it– but the plan–_

“Mom!” she tried again. “Where are you?” 

_Meet us–_ the radio sputters, cutting here and there. 

From the back room of the small store, the clicking, wheezing noise comes before it’s seen. Alicia swallows and turns low the volume, her hand frantically searching behind her for the door latch.

When it emerges, she stares at it for a moment. A gold cross hangs from its neck. Glasses skewed but still stuck to its face. Black blood lazily drips down its face, matting in the long red hair. She couldn’t have been any older than her mother, Alicia realizes. 

Immediately, it snaps its head towards her as she clicks the lock, ready to run. Before it can move again, Alicia shoves open the door and is off again. 

Away from the herd, away from her family, away from the radio signal, she sprints again, arms pumping, shoes flopping against the empty pavement. As best she can, she dodges walkers lingering. 

_Run,_ she chants, furrowing her brow, refusing to think of anything else. _Run._

* * *

The sun snarls directly overhead in the mean kind of noon that comes despite the remaining haze from the half-dead city. Elyza drags her forearm across her forehead, the mix of blood and sweat forming a nasty mess on her arm that she wipes on her pant leg. 

The remnants of the small group of walkers pile up to her shoulders as she pulls the bandana down from nose before pulling off the thick gloves. The killing them part was always more fun than the clean up, but here she was. 

From her back pocket, she pulls out a cigarette, carefully putting it to her lips and lighting it with her old lighter. The smoke puffs into a cloud before drifting away as she snaps it shut and puts it back in her pocket. 

Seventeen more notches to go on with the count, she observes, leaning on the shovel. The parking lot is quiet, not even the birds are back yet. 

With a small, proud nod, she takes one last drag and tosses the cigarette onto the puddle of gas and takes a step back as the pyre goes up in an instant. 

She doesn’t like watching them burn. It feels oddly intimate, as if she is forgetting some key step, as if she should say something. Often she doesn’t. Occasionally, she’ll mutter some prayer from the recesses of her mind, tugged out of the archives from her years in the orphanage’s school. 

With a clunk, the shovel gets tossed in the back of the old pick up and Elyza grabs her coat hanging on the tailgate. She has plans for the day, and she has a tight schedule to keep if she is going to save the world. A foolhardy task, she knows, but at this point, foolhardy is all the world has left. 

Just as she pulls her hair from beneath her coat, she spots movement in her peripherals. Down the block, she sees a girl running, crossing the street, and not five seconds later, the herd she’d gathered. 

Elyza chuckles to herself and shakes her head. She rolls her eyes and swings her leg over her bike, turning the engine on and revving it for a minute. 

The fire attracts some. It’s not an especially large horde, though it could easily grow. The sound of her bike gets a few more. 

She debates for a second as she turns around and sits at the entrance to the grocery store, surveying the road. Making a right would take her back home, and she could get to work on clearing the other neighborhood. A left and another left would follow the girl. 

She wasn’t a hero. That wasn’t the foolhardy mission. Talking to another living person was stupid, was dangerous, was beside the point. This is easier, to do it alone. No fuss, no muss, no trouble when she inevitably failed from ridding the world of the new plague. 

“Son of a bitch,” she snaps, making her choice and speeding to the left. 

Deftly, she weaves through the trailing walkers, hitting the sidewalk and avoiding parked cars. As she passes them and cuts ahead, the girl is no where to be seen. Elyza slows her bike and looks around, finally spotting her cornered on the ground with a walker crawling from beneath a car. 

With a quick look over her shoulder, she does the math on how much time she has before looping around to the free side of the car. She pulls the shotgun over her shoulder and blasts. Instantly, the creature goes still and the girl screams. 

“You want to get out of here?” Elyza asks impatiently, holding out her free hand. The girl looks at her for a second, eyes growing wide as she looks over the stranger’s shoulders. The leather-jacket clad saviour turns quickly, jams the butt of the gun into a dead face and looks back expectantly. 

“I…” It’s too much for her, and her eyes roll back, body going loose. 

For the first time, Elyza notices the trickle of blood going down the girl’s head and sighs. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Elyza groans, looking at the girl on the ground before looking back at the impending mess. “Save her. It’ll be easy,” she mimics her own conscience. With a quick movement, she squats, yanks an arm and tosses the wounded girl on her shoulder. “It’ll be quick,” she grunts under the weight. “Won’t cause any trouble.” 

As best she can, she swings her leg onto her bike again and settles the girl half over her shoulder and half in her lap. 

It’s slow going, but she follows the familiar streets until she turns off to her stop. The sun is no longer high, no longer angry, but still the sweat settles on her skin, clinging to her clothes. 

“Brilliant,” she sighs, carefully putting the girl down in the bed as she struggled through the house. “Now what?”

* * *

Sore as her head is, Alicia opens her eyes with a jolt. Woozy and disoriented, she tenses, looking around the room as best she can in the dim light of the evening. 

Beside the bed, she noticed a glass of water and two aspirin. She doesn’t take them right away, instead eyeing the rest of the room. It was small. A little window letting in the last of the light while a candle burned on a dresser. Nothing lets her know where she is or how she got there. 

Alicia listens to the noises, hearing some movement just outside the door. Frantic, she looks for anything, settling for a small pocket knife on a shelf before quietly making her way to the door. 

Her memory is foggy, but when she sees the blonde hair, she remembers a flash of it, right before the loud gunshot and her passing out. It doesn’t make her loosen her grip on the small knife though. 

Leaning against a table filled with maps and weapons, the girl has her back to Alicia, who now holds her breath as she takes a step forward. Her rescuer stares at the map, pushes her hair over her head and around her shoulder. Alicia swallows as she sees the ink embedded there in the tan skin. 

“I’d think twice about that if I were you,” the voice mutters, almost amused despite not turning around. All Alicia hears is the way the vowels sound and how the accent is suddenly making her neck shiver. 

“Who are you?” 

“Someone you don’t want to pull a knife on unless you actually plan on using it,” she grins, finally turning around. A larger hunting knife is strapped to her belt, and she pats it affectionately. 

For a moment, Alicia keeps holding the knife while staring at the girl, trying to will her brain to make a decision as to how dangerous the situation is. On one level, her brain lets her know that this girl did rescue her, and she probably won’t kill her. On another, she’s a stranger. And on a very, very distinct, other level, this girl was bad to be around in the most disastrously frustrating kind of ways. 

Blue eyes stare back, hard and intense, while an eyebrow cocks, challenging her with a smirk. Alicia just stands there, not sure how someone could look like that, ever, before or after the world had gone to shit. 

With a final movement, she folds the small knife back into the kit and tosses it on the counter before holding up her hands in defeat and letting them drop to her thighs. 

“Where am I?” she finally ventures, eyes wondering to the supplies on the table. 

“My home. Or, I guess, what’s now my home,” Elyza shrugs. “You cracked your head pretty good.” Instinctively, Alicia’s fingers move to the bump and cut on the side of her head. “I stitched it up, best I could.”

“Thanks.” 

She’d taken the time to appraise the girl’s face when she’d given her a once over, making sure she wasn’t bit, but now, awake and alive and afraid, Elyza gets to really see her, and is pleasantly surprised. It was easy to see that she was pretty, but disheveled and defensive, she’s gorgeous. 

Elyza had planned on playing it tough, trying to get rid of her as soon as possible, but now she’s grateful she went through the trouble of helping. A little cosmic reward, she smiles. 

The aussie picks up a lollypop from the table beside her pistol and tosses the wrapped before slipping it into her mouth as she cocks her head and takes a step around the table. The girl takes a step back. 

“I’m sorry,” she pauses. “I’m Elyza. I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I did save your life. It’d be kind of counterintuitive, wouldn’t it?” 

For a moment, Alicia stands her ground, watching her grab the sucker and pull it from her mouth, softening her gaze slightly. 

“Alicia.” 

“You know its dangerous out there right, to go running around down there?”

“I wasn’t…” it clicks then. Alicia’s eyes grow wide and she bolts back into the bedroom. It takes a moment before she comes back out into the main quarters. “Where is it?” 

“Where’s what?” Elyza asks, shifting the lolly to her cheek and chewing on the stick. She wants to smoke, but it seems impolite. 

“My radio.” 

“Oh.” 

“Oh?” 

Worried, Alicia is beside the table in a second, following Elyza’s gaze to the mangled electronic resting on the maps. She feels the dejection pass through her and she flops onto the chair there. Her hands stall before picking it up. 

Elyza watches her sit there, watches the hope drain from her eyes as she picks up the radio. It drops to the table a second after she tries the switch and nothing happens. Alicia puts her face in her hands and shakes it. Her shoulders move with a heavy, dejected sigh. 

“It’ll… It’s… It’s okay,” Elyza tries, grimacing slightly, unsure of how to do this. Tentatively, she takes her hand and it hovers over the girl’s shoulder. With a small movement, she pats it gently before turning around and moving somewhere else. 

Quiet as it is, Alicia, wipes her face and looks up only when she hears the clink of a glass being set before her. The pills follow. 

“I’ll never find them now,” she mutters. 

“Take these,” Elyza insists. 

“What if they’re dead?” 

“Who?” 

“My mom, my brother, my family.” 

“They survived this long, right?” Elyza tries. “Take this. It’ll help.” 

“What do I do now?” 

Her eyes are grey and green. Elyza meets them, holds the gaze wondering if she can come up with something to fix this situation, though she fantastically fails. 

“We’ll figure it out, gorgeous,” she promises. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find them.” She watches Alicia look away, watches her blush unconsciously, watches her nod and sigh and ache to believe that the stranger could do that. “Take these.“

Without anymore argument, the girl obeys. Elyza picks up the water and hands it to her. 

“Thanks.” 

“Yeah, of course,” Elyza nods, adjusting her lolly. “Nothing more troubling than a beautiful girl upset.” 

“Just let me be miserable for a moment.”

“Alright,” the blonde nods. “Let me know when I can start flirting with you, okay?” 

A snort, a half-laugh emerges and Elyza smiles victoriously before turning back to her maps. From her spot at the table, Alicia lets her eyes slyly drift from the radio to the girl’s back with the ghost of a smile hiding beneath the crushing reality of her missing family.

* * *

There are birds here, Alicia notices as she squints towards the morning sun. The little cabin is hidden, tucked in what looks like a forest north of the city. The ocean crashes below on the cliff in the back while the trees sway and let the light become almost green as it filters through their canopy. 

Her feet crunch along the gravel towards the tree by the driveway. The gate has been improved, strong and sturdy as far as she can see around the little property. She can’t imagine any walkers would wonder by on accident though, as there are no other buildings for as far as she can see. 

“You fucking wanker,” Elyza growls, squatting beside her bike. “Absolute fucking,” she grunts with each yank. “Piece.” grunt. “Of fucking.” grunt. “Shite.” 

Alicia pauses as a wrench is tossed across the yard, kicking up dirt as it came to a rest. She watches Elyza stand and put her hands on her hips, stomping around to the other side before making another circle. She kicks the tire, pushing the hair that fell from a messy bun and into her eyes away with her other hand, her onslaught raging. 

“Fuckwit,” Elyza finally stops. 

Alicia watches her pull the cigarette from between her lips and toss it on the ground and try to catch her breath. She sees her reach in one pocket and pull out the pack before putting it back and taking a sucker from her other pocket. 

Even in the morning, the air is hot. The heat appears in slick spots of sweat on her muscular shoulders. Alicia notices it but tries to look away. 

“I’d hate to see what you could do to a walker,” she finally peeps up, earning a scowl from the blonde who just sighs. 

“You should see me try to cook,” Elyza grins, earning one from Alicia as well. 

“You were right,” Alicia moves closer to the motorcycle as Clarke saddles up on the bike and bends over, working on it again. “Sleep helped. My head feels better.” 

“Old Australian remedy,” the blonde winks. “Walk it off, smear some dirt in it, or sleep it off.” 

“Sounds like a beautiful country.” 

“Sights aren’t so bad here,” she grins, eyeing the girl who sassed her back. Alicia blushes but writes it off as the heat of the morning. 

For a moment, they are quiet, and the girl wrings her hands and finally shoves them in her back pocket. 

“Thank you,” she nods, hoping she can make it through. “For… saving me. I don’t know if I can repay–”

“It was nothing. Please don’t make a thing of it.” 

“I have to. It’s my life.” 

“I saw a hot girl, I had nothing else to do. No skin off my nose.” 

“It was still brave.” 

“Can you get me that wrench?” Elyza asks, not looking up. Alicia stands there a minute longer before shaking her head and retrieving the thrown tool. “There. We’re even.” 

“Swell.” 

Unsure of what to do next, Alicia simply takes a seat on the bumper of an old truck parked beside the bike. Far behind the house, the ocean stretches out forever. She misses the feeling of the boat, of the safety that came on board. 

“Who are you?” Alicia finally ventures after watching the girl work, her hands deftly moving, covered in grease. 

“Do you have amnesia?” 

“You just swoop in and save me, bring me up to this place, and now what? What do you want from me?” 

“Right now?” Elyza pauses, moving the sucker to the other side of her mouth. She sits up on the bike and eyes the girl warily. “Just looking at you every now and then is kind of nice.” She earns crossed arms and a glare. “I don’t know. The world is wide open. You can do whatever you want.” 

“I thought you were going to help me find my family.” 

“I will. But I can’t do that when my bike needs a tune up.” 

“Right. Let’s just play Jiffy Lube and let God know’s what happen to my life,” Alicia sasses as her disinterest in the task at hand comes out. 

“You’re right,” Elyza grins, dropping the wrench. “Let me just make an appointment with the mechanic. We can drop this off and go shopping, maybe get lunch while we’re at it.” She pulls her handkerchief from her pocket and wipes her hands. “I’m only as good as my tools, and if this thing breaks, we’re stranded in the middle of a mountain of shit.”

“So you had to do this, instead of helping me find them?” 

Twenty-four hours, and she’s already capable of getting under her skin. Elyza stares hard, sets her jaw, grinds her teeth. It was because she was beautiful and she knew it. Alicia might not realize it, but that was why. The blonde shakes her head to herself with the thoughts. 

Had to rescue her, she taunts herself in her head. Why not? She’s beautiful. Save a pretty girl, ride off into the sunset. Maybe eek out a little bit of a better existence in the wretched wasteland of the apocalypse. 

“You’re spoiled,” Elyza realizes, tossing her hands and dismissing the girl. “We don’t take risks. We survive. We’re smart. We’ll find them.” 

“I’m not spoiled. By all means, take your time.” The sarcasm infused in the words is enough to make Elyza shake her head.

“I… You…I ought–” the blonde leans closer and then stops, putting her hands on her hips before walking away. “You’re frustrating.” 

“I thought I was gorgeous.” 

“Not gorgeous enough for this,” Elyza calls over her shoulder as she wretches open the door to the cabin. 

By the time she finishes all of her chores and gets the bike in working order, the sun is closer to the ocean than the centre of the sky. 

Elyza washes her hand in the bucket she drew from the well in the back yard, making not that it’s time to pull the laundry down from the line. Not a sound had been heard from Alicia, and she was grateful for it. 

The grease is stubborn, but she rubs the soap into a lather and tries anyway. The entire time her hands work, she tries to remember what human contact was supposed to be like. For too long, she realizes, she must have been around the dead that she forgot how to be human. 

Or perhaps she was always mostly like this. So what was her excuse? 

When the screen door slaps shut, she jerks her head up and watches Alicia approach. She rinses her hands and waits, knowing full well that she isn’t the one who should break the cold shoulder. 

Instead, she runs the rag up over her neck and down her shoulders. 

“I’m sorry,” the girl finally admits, though its difficult to get out. “I just… it’s my family.” 

Elyza just sets her jaw and watches the girl squirm with the confession. She won’t meet her eyes, and as much as she doesn’t want it to, it makes her feel bad. She tosses the rag in the bucket. 

“You are gorgeous enough to be that spoiled,” Elyza finally confesses, earning a smile. 

“I was trying to be serious.” 

“Me too.” 

“I made dinner,” Alicia shakes her head. “So. Whenever you’re ready. You know. If you’re hungry. It’s just spaghetti. I raided your supplies. I thought it’d be a nice peace offering.” 

“Sounds good.” 

“Alright. Whenever you’re ready.” 

“I’ll be right in,” Elyza promises.

* * *

“This is where I found you,” the blonde points to the large map covering her wall. It is bisected, crossed out, shaded, color-coded with her many excursions into the city on her epic quest. 

“So we must have come up here,” Alicia nods, focusing on the roads, her finger trailing along the route her family traveled to find supplies. 

Dinner plates washed and the table cleared from weapons, all carefully put away courtesy of the girl who took it upon herself to clean the house in her own form of anger. Elyza is still unaccustomed to having someone else in her house at all. 

The proximity is dangerous, and so the blonde pulls away and leans against the table, crossing her arms. This is serious business. She can flirt with her later. 

“Which was incredibly stupid.” 

“We haven’t been on land in months,” Alicia defends herself. “We needed supplies.” 

“Still.” 

“Sorry we’re not all leather-clad zombie killers on a mission to do… what exactly? Rid the entire city of the plague?” the brunette scoffed. 

“Well… yeah, actually,” Elyza shrugged. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m going to kill all of them.” 

For a moment, Alicia pauses before looking over her shoulder at this stranger who she couldn’t quite get a read on just yet. It was the accent. She couldn’t sense sarcasm, though she is afraid there is none to detect. 

“That’s crazy.” 

“As crazy as living on a boat and hoping things get better?” 

“More dangerous.” 

“Danger’s my middle name, babe,” Elyza swears with a wink. Okay. A little flirting is allowed now. 

“I highly doubt your mom thought that was a good choice.” 

“Wouldn’t know,” the blonde shrugs, fiddling with a stray gun, pulling it back and checking the chamber before taking it apart. “Never met my mum.” 

“Just when I think I can solve the mystery of you, I get more steps behind,” Alicia shakes her head, turning back to the map. 

“Aw, you think about me already, gorgeous?” 

“No.” 

“A little.” 

“No.” 

“Sure sure.” 

“What’s the plan then?” 

“A little more witty banter,” Elyza lists. “A few tentative innuendos to test the waters. Maybe a deep talk or two to bare our souls and really get invested followed by the filthiest make out you’ve ever had in your life and then hopefully–”

“To find my family,” Alicia cuts it off with a glare. 

“Right,” the blonde nods. “Well. We get some supplies and head down to the bay. Take a boat and head down south to see if we can find them. I imagine they’ve at least gone offshore.” 

“How long will it take?” 

“I’m hoping I can get you to fall for me in under a week.” 

“To find–”

“I’m not sure. But I will do my best, I promise.” 

“Do you really?” Alicia turns and meets her eyes, naive and slightly hopeful, as if a promise is going to fix it. Elyza swallows and nods. 

“I promise.” 

“You’ve already done so much for me. Before,” the brunette looks away. “I was a brat. I’m just. All we have left anymore is each other. My family could be dead and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if that’s true.” 

“We’ll find them,” Elyza nods and stands, tilting Alicia’s chin up. “Or my name isn’t Elyza ‘Danger’ Lex.” 

“But it’s not.” 

“You’re right. But it sounds badass, right?” She lets her knuckle linger a little longer under her chin, her eyes moving to Alicia’s lips and back to her eyes. A girl like that could be as spoiled as she wanted, in her book. “I don’t make promises lightly. So when I do, I always keep them.” 

Before she sees it coming, arms are wrapped around her neck, almost throwing her off balance. Alicia squeezes and holds there despite how rigid the girl in her arms grows at the contact. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, holding tight until she feels arms wrap around her back. 

“All in a day’s work,” Elyza swallows, enjoying her reward and realizing she’d do a lot of insane things just for another hug like that.


	2. Chapter 2

Even with the breeze wafting in from the ocean, the last bits of summer rage through the salt spray and blindingly blue sky. The trees all shake their leaves, filling the quiet world with the noise of their tap dancing feet while the birds cut through the wind and lazily squawk, half-hearted and disinterested.

“Not like that,” Elyza shakes her head. “Do it again.”

“Why? This is ridiculous,” Alicia complains, her arms dropping as she turns around to look at the unwilling instructor. On the fence post the bottles and cans remain untouched. “It’s getting me no closer to my family.”

“If I’m going to run all over the city, trying to find a damn boat, you’re going to be able to protect yourself and watch my back,” the blonde informs her. She stands behind the firing line, hands on her hips, cocked and challenging. She earns a huff. “Can’t believe you’ve made it as long as you have.”

“This is stupid,” the girl complains again, shouldering up and aiming the gun at the targets. “I’m not going to close enough to them.”

“Relax your shoulders. Keep a tight grip, but don’t squeeze–” The gun goes off a second later, just as the instructor places her hands on the tense muscles and skin bared on Alicia’s shoulder. Frazzled, the brunette clears her throat and sheepishly smiles before trying to regain some focus. “Easy there, gorgeous. Take your time.”

Another shot misses wide, hitting a tree a dozen yards back, splintering bark and earning a chuckle from the teacher.

“I don’t see you doing this,” the pupil taunts. “Shotguns spray. Of course you could hit something up close. Why can’t I use that?”

Squaring up to her, Elyza smirks. She doesn’t break eye contact, her body nearly flush from the proximity of helping her stance. She adjusts Alicia’s hip before standing parallel, just inches from pressing against her. 

“Shotguns are for up close and personal. We’re trying to keep you as far away from them as possible.” 

“I can’t hit a bottle let alone a moving target.” 

“That’s why we’re practicing.” 

“Like you can do any better,” the trainee taunts, leaning closer, challenging.

Alicia watches her jaw flex and shift as her lips curl up. She watches blue eyes, blue like the sky and the ocean and she is drowning in blue all of a sudden, she watches them move to her own lips and back to her eyes. She jumps a second later as six shots rip off, massacring half of the targets.

Elyza doesn’t look, but simply shoves the pistol back in her holster on her thigh, accomplishing nothing but effectively turning Alicia on in ways the girl never thought possible. 

“Your turn, princess.”

When their proximity is lessened, when the blonde takes a step back and crosses her arms, Alicia inhales deeply, her head swirling slightly. It takes a moment, but she lifts the gun again and tries to line the sights to the targets as Elyza had shown her.

It takes half of another clip before a bottle explodes. The shock isn’t lost on anyone in attendance, and both are quiet for a moment before Alicia lowers the weapon and turns around, eyes wide and mouth open, though forming a smile that showed off every tooth, the whole way to her ears.

“Well done, beautiful,” Elyza grins, enjoying the pure wonder and amusement on the girl’s face. The world had gone to absolute shit, and yet, there was this. “All it took was a little motivation.”

“If I hit another, you have to stop flirting with me,” Alicia wagers, looking over her shoulder, hiding her blush at the casual words.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“You just like seeing if you can make me flustered.”

It isn’t a lie, and Elyza can’t do anything other than shrug. Three days they’d been at it, planning their boat trip, preparing the one they selected at the marina a few miles up the coast, practicing in case of any danger. Earning a blush or three from the pretty girl was what kept Elyza interested. She certainly didn’t care if they ever found her family. She just wanted to see Alicia smile.

“I also like when you do this thing, where you run your hand along your neck,” she mimics the motion with a shy smile. “Like you aren’t used to being called astonishing. I’m incredibly interested in keeping that going. This bet seems a little one-sided.”

“You think I can hit it again?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then bet me.”

“Fine.”

Alicia squares up again, though a smile spreads across her lips. She eyes a big bottle in particular. For a second she debates, thinks about it, wonders if she’s ever been called astonishing. Though it is in her sites, she moves the barrel slightly, hitting the ground a few feet over.

“Maybe we should switch to knives for a while,” Elyza exhales a sigh of relief.

The gun goes off again and the bottle shatters. Grinning and proud, Alicia turns around finally and waits expectantly for a comment. Instead she just gets a smile. There was no way she was going to willingly make Elyza stop, as much as she wishes she could.

* * *

When the plans are done, when the boat is found, cleared, and loaded, when there is nothing to do but set off, the sky fills with clouds, dark and marching in from the west. Elyza watches them glide through the sky, kicking up the waves in angry kinds of tantrums so that they whine and throw themselves against the cliffs, as if they could tear apart the earth in all of their bitter rage. Petulant and ornery, the ocean is magnificent and alive and the power reminds Elyza of home, for just a moment. 

The only thing they can do is watch. The breeze kicks up and hollers through the trees. The clouds eat up blue sky, and the two sit on the edge of the world, on the porch to the end of civilization and simply wait to welcome it, hope to weather it, hold to start their journey.

Elyza can feel the disappointment radiating from the brunette, though to her surprise, Alicia doesn’t say anything. She wants to, and the blonde knows it, but not even she can command the weather.

The storm sitting beside her is more troublesome than the one brewing off the coast on the horizon, though both overwhelm her and leave Elyza struggling to fathom how to correct or soothe either. She tries not to think about how five days has changed everything. But here she is, protector and fawning puppy all at once, much to her own dismay. 

Instead, she just sits on the swing and lazily reads an old book whose cover has long since been ripped and forgotten somewhere else, often with her eyes looking over the top and searching the brunette’s face, greatly impeding her progress with the novel.

“The storm is only going to last the day,” Elyza promises. “Summer thunder is quick. All bark and no bite. It’ll roll out by morning.”

“Yeah,” Alicia nods, smiling politely. After everything Elyza’s done for her, she bites her tongue and decides to grow up, to just accept the kind word.

“Do you want to shoot some more? We have about an hour before the rains come.” the blonde offers, letting the book fall to her chest as she reclines in the small swing on the porch. It is a weak offer, but it’s all she has. She earns a head shake. “I’m trying to cheer you up, princess. You know I’m a sucker for a girl with a frown. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”

“I’m okay,” she offers. “Read your book.”

Disinterested in the novel at hand, Elyza doesn’t argue at first. Instead, she lifts her hips and pulls the near-empty pack of cigarettes from her pocket, slips on between her lips, and lights. She moves her head to stare out at the storm and blows smoke into the breeze.

Alicia won’t admit it, but she steals a look from the distraction of the sea to the distraction in dirty jeans and white tank top. The one with the ink she can’t quite get close enough or see enough of to decipher. The one who holds up the book again while letting her hand holding the cigarette absently hang over the back of the armrest to the swing before bringing it to her lips once more. The sight of it makes Alicia nervous, and so she turns to something less violent and terrifying, she turns to the squall.

“I know what you need,” Elyza decides, tossing her cigarette to the wind and letting her book flop to the ground, open to where she left off. Alicia watches her push around her messy blonde waves before standing victoriously and slipping back into the house. “I’ve been saving it,” her voice calls from the cabin where rummaging could be heard.

When she emerges, bottle held up triumphantly by the neck, Alicia snorts. Elyza wiggles her eyebrows, challenging her.

“Well, what do you say, gorgeous? Let me cheer you up the Australian way.”

“You’re not trying to get fresh, are you?”

“I would never,” she feigns innocence. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’m assuming you ask that question often,” Alicia shook her head, pushing herself up and brushing her thighs free from dirt.

“You should try it. The results could be life-changing. Last time I did,” the blonde pulled the knife from her hip and used the point to open the plastic on the lid. “The last time I did,” she grunted. “I found you. End of the world, and I stumble across the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. So yeah. It’s my favourite question.”

“You’re a terrible influence.” 

“But a great way to spend a night.”

* * *

Not all of it, but a large portion of the once full fifth is gone, coursing through their bloodstreams and making their lips tingle. The rain arrives, with a few fat drops at first, for just an instant, before it becomes an inundation, before not even the waves below are loud enough to match it.

Safe inside the cabin, the two take to the living room, hunkering down in various states of comfort while exchanging the bottle between them. The night falls quickly and early because of the storm, but neither truly notice, time being irrelevant at all anymore. 

“But why Berkeley?” Elyza asks, slipping a lollypop back between her lips. She watches Alicia notice the action and swallow before she even reaches for the bottle.

“I wanted to study law.”

“You could have done that at UCLA.”

“I wanted to study law away from my family,” she amends, hissing after a small sip. Elyza chuckles at her reaction. “They’re a lot of work.”

“And you’re making me sail the seven seas to find the people you wanted to move away from?” Elyza realizes, amused and surprised by the confession. “You really are spoiled.”

“You’re right. I’m the complicated one in this room,” Alicia rolled her eyes. “I’m the one hiding from her issues behind a… a… an armoury and leather jacket.”

“Now, I’m not certain,” the blonde squints and sizes her up. “But I think you’re being sarcastic.” She earns a look as the bottle is handed back to her.

With a movement, she adjusts her legs on the coffee table and lets the bottle rest against her thigh. The fire cracks in the fireplace, and with the light breeze that slips beneath the small crack in the window makes the candles dance. In this kind of light, she isn’t sure she’s ever seen anything like Alicia. The slope of her jaw, the dilation of her eyes. She takes another drink.

“I’m not complicated,” Elyza finally disagrees after catching Alica’s eyes and looking away, the booze making her bashful instead of brazen. Perhaps it was the honesty, perhaps it was the fact that the world sounded as if it really were ending outside. “You know plenty about me.”

“Not really.” 

“Try.” 

With the challenge, Alicia takes the bottle, hugging it to her and debating before opening her mouth to answer.

“I know you were going to UCLA. I know that your favourite weapon is that hunting knife. I know you’re trying to quit smoking, but I push your buttons and don’t help,” she smiles to herself. “I know that you crunch your suckers when I get too close. And I know you have a penchant for trying to look like a badass, but you still call me beautiful… and mean it… I think.”

“I already quit smoking,” Elyza corrects, lounging on the one end of the couch. “Now I just do it for fun.”

“My mistake.” 

“See? Not much of a mystery.” 

“I listed barely a handful of things. That’s all.” 

“I’m a simple girl. It’s not like I know you at all either.” 

“Feels like we do though, doesn’t it?” Alicia sighs, letting her head lull against the cushion. The blonde doesn’t hide the glance, never embarrassed of looking at her. “For some reason those few little things seem so important.”

“It’s who we are now.” 

“You’re not the same as who you were… before?” 

The windows flash with the lightning. Elyza thinks about it for a moment, thinks hard and deep about if it were true. 

“I reckon I am, pretty much.”

“Yeah,” Alicia agrees. “Me too.” She grabs for the bottle and takes another swig. 

In the quiet, Elyza watches the girl not enjoy the drink, and continue doing it anyway. Her knee touched Alicia’s. She let her eyes meander down her curves, down her jaw and ear, along her neck. Got distracted all too much entirely. She might be the last other living soul in the world, and for moment, that isn’t the worst reality. 

“I moved from house to house when I was a kid,” she finally confesses. “Foster families. None of them really wanted me. Got into a lot of fights. Luckily, I had one bright spot. My case worker, Abby, she’d buy me new clothes. Art supplies. Bail me out when I got pinched.” 

Alicia hands her the bottle, lets her hand fall to Elyza’s knee where she runs her thumb over the hole there. She doesn’t want to look up, for fear of spooking her, for fear of missing her words. Often, her comments are snarky, are flirting, are always layered and rarely real. 

“She kept me on the straight-ish and narrow-ish,” Elyza smiles. “As best she could. But the truth is, even after all that, after the end of the world, after growing up and leaving, I’m still that kid with everything she owns in a garbage bag. Some things are just part of who you are. Innate.” 

When she looks up, Alicia meets Elyza’s glance, holds it as long as she can, afraid of its intensity. She sees the real, the true, the blue eyes that have grown darker, like the sky after the sun sets. 

“I don’t know,” Alicia shrugs. “You saved my life. You’ve never been a garbage bag kid to me.” 

“Are you going to let me guess you now?” Elyza takes a long gulp, hoping to wash away the taste of her truth. If she keeps drinking, she could forget it happened at all. “I’m pretty good at this kind of thing?” 

“Comes from your expertise at introspection and verbalizing your own feelings, I suspect.”

“Funny.” 

“I thought so.” 

Her fingers never stop moving over the bone of Elyza’s knee, though her touch grows lighter. She traces the frayed edge of the jeans before look back and feeling blue eyes appraising her. 

“Mom and Dad got divorced when you were… nine.” 

“Twelve.” 

“You get whatever you want as a result of their guilt.” 

“I’d disagree, but I’m sure you’re convinced.” 

“Spoiled, and wanting to get away from home. Mom must have found you a new daddy.” The silence is an answer. Elyza nods to herself. “Troubled brother makes you look good by comparison, so you’ve started doing riskier and riskier things. Trying to prove you’re better, at everything, but things just come naturally to him. You’ve always had to work for it.” 

“Travis,” Alicia rolls her eyes. “But you already knew about Nick.” 

“But the other part?” 

“I’m not a risk taker.” 

“Not yet.” 

“I’ll give you half-credit.” 

“So I’ve covered Mom and Stepdad, brother, being the princess because you have to be better than anyone else. Daddy left you guys and started a new family, huh?” 

“If you count heroin as a family.” 

“Close.” 

“Am I that predictable?” Alica worries, doe yes in full effect. Elyza swallows under the gaze, deathly afraid of her lashes and lips. 

“I’ve been around a lot of childhoods.” 

“Is there anything you’re not good at?” the brunette complains, closing her eyes and tossing her head back. 

The blonde bites her lip and grins, wanting desperately to take that as a challenge to show the girl other things she’s good at. Instead just drinks. 

“Math.”

* * *

The birds chirp outside the window and the sofa moves beneath her. Through the curtains, the sunshine illuminated the living room while the fire fizzled out completely. 

Alicia knits her eyes shut, fighting against it for as long as she can, the heavy dose of liquor making her muscles lethargic and disinterested in such things as waking or sunshine. 

Much too comfortable and relaxed, Alicia digs her nose into the pillow until her cheek finds skin, until her nose reaches neck. In a second her eyes pop open and her body goes rigid just as arms move around her back. One hand is warm and beneath her shirt, pressed softly against her rib. As much as she enjoys it, the accumulation of so many facts makes her nervous, makes her wish she hadn’t had as much to drink, makes her wonder what the hell else she got into last night. 

“Oh shit,” Alicia sits up, earning an oof as she elbows the body beneath her. 

“Good morning to you too, princess,” Elyza grumbles, not even opening her eyes. 

The truth of the matter was that she was awake when Alicia drifted off. She let the mopey girl crawl into her lap as they tried to venture to sleep after an impromptu debate regarding many things they’d never have again after the end of the world. While the fire burned low, Alicia gave her those eyes, and Elyza was far too inebriated to stop her as she prowled and crawled into her arms. 

She stayed awake as long as she could as Alicia drifted off quite quickly, muttering about her family and fear, nuzzling into her neck. The entire time, the blonde remained still, almost afraid to do anything else other than stare at the ceiling.

Unsure of when she actually drifted off, Elyza rubs her eyes a few hours later as she is so hastily brought back to the land of the living. Still, Alicia sits almost on top of her, wedged against the couch.

“Sleep well?”

“Shut up,” Alicia snaps.

“I don’t know why you’re upset,” Elyza defends herself as she is dismounted in a huff. “You’re the one that fell asleep on me. If anything, I should be the one throwing a tantrum.”

“I’m not…” she stands, still woozy. Her mouth is dry and she feels like death, but still, she has to put space between them. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. I just… we should get up. Head out.”

“Come back to bed, darling,” the blonde only shifts on the couch, stretching, languid and grinning.

“I’m going to go.. clean up. Get ready.”

Flustered as she is, Alicia manages to get away without looking at the girl on the couch too much. She doesn’t notice the way her shirt has ridden up, exposing ink on her ribs. She certainly doesn’t notice that scar on her hip. She definitely doesn’t want to see more. And beyond a doubt, Alicia is in no way, shape, or form, at all eager to have her lips that close to Elyza’s neck ever again. If she repeats the lies, they can become the truth, she imagines.

With a shake of her head, she decides these things and closes the door on her way to the well.

* * *

As soon as the truck crossed through the gate, as soon as Elyza got out and closed it and she watched through the side mirror, Alicia feels an almost sense of homesickness. Five days she spent at the cabin on the cliff, five days of being safe and not even seeing one of those things, not even thinking about them. As the gate clicks shut, she looks straight ahead at the winding road through the woods and remembers her family.

It crosses her mind, that maybe she would be better off here. With Elyza. She was more than capable of taking care of them, and certainly ready to train her in how to survive. The place was quiet and isolated, safe and free. The shed was half-way converted for a few pieces of livestock, a section of yard already set aside for a garden. Elyza’s vision was real and Alicia’s chase was a pipedream.

“We should have taken these last boxes yesterday, before the rain,” Elyza decides as she takes her seat behind the wheel. “Could have got you to cling to me on the bike.”

“That seems like an impractical vehicle for the end of the world,” Alicia shakes her head and props her heels on the dash, enjoying the air that breezes through the window as they take off on their journey.

“Fast, sleek, badass,” Elyza scoffs. “I think it fits perfectly.”

“Can’t carry much.”

“At any given moment, on my person, are at least eight ways to kill something,” the blonde shakes her head. “And at least three to give pleasure. I’m not fretting over trunk space.”

With a furious blush, the passenger quickly looks away, only catching the smallest bit of a smirk as they bounced along the driveway, weaving back towards a main road.

It takes only a few minutes before they pass the first walker. Elyza sees Alicia tense slightly, slip her hand to her side and feel the hilt of the knife she gave her. She’s sure the pistol is tucked into her other side. Her shirt hangs from her shoulders, rolled up to the elbows, making the blonde somewhat possessive, though she quickly blames that on the cuddling. Just the cuddling.

“In just a few hours I could be completely rid of you,” Elyza realizes aloud.

“Then who would you flirt with relentlessly?”

“That’s my favourite word.”

“Which?”

“Relentlessly. I like it. Undaunted and focused in pursuit of something. Unyielding.”

The truck bumps slightly as they hit a pothole, but Alicia watches Elyza focus on driving. The town was small, where she set up her camp, and having cleaned up as much as she could, the dozen or so walkers arrived and would most likely continue on their way.There was not much to focus on, but still, Elyza didn’t want to look at the girl beside her.

“You’re just going to drop me off, like this is a playdate or something?”

“I told you I’d get you back to your family.”

“You can come with us.”

“I have work to do.” Her hands grasp at the steering wheel a little tighter. “Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion you can’t wait to get away from me.”

“Not really,” Alicia admits. “You thought I was spoiled before, but calling me beautiful all day has really done a number on me.”

“Believe me, princess,” Elyza smiles. Alicia likes it. It feels like a real smile, soft and almost a surprise to its owner. She obviously wasn’t expecting that answer from the damsel she rescued. “I woul-” The tires screech as she tugs the wheel to the side, though not in enough time to avoid hitting the walker in the street. The truck stops, perpendicular to what it was. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alicia nods, sitting up a little straighter. She stares at the smear of blood on her side of the truck windshield. “You?”

“Peachy. Do you remember what I told you the other day about shotguns?”

“Up close and personal.”

“Right,” Elyza nods, face growing serious, determined in a way that Alicia was unaccustomed. She pulls the weapon up from beside her leg and hands it to the girl. “Just in case.”

“What’s going…” Her eyes grow as she follows the blonde’s gaze, noticing the large herd making their way from whatever was occupying their attention to the truck.

“Storm must have pushed them this way,” Elyza realizes. 

“What are we going to do? There’s a hundred between us and the marina.” 

For a second, Elyza stares at the impending disaster, her mind racing a million ways. She’s been in worse, seen worse, but this is different, and she knows exactly why, though she calls it a promise and leaves it at that.

“No matter what, you get to the boat.”

“What about–”

“Give me exactly seven minutes when you get there,” Elyza grins. “Remember. Left, right, left again.” She goes to open the door and stops as Alicia starts to ask her more questions. “Let them pass. Don’t make a sound. Don’t move. Let them pass. Can you do that?”

“Do… what? I can’t… You’re supposed to–”

“I’m going to take the scenic route,” the daring blonde nods. “Not a sound, beautiful.”

“What if–”

Elyza reaches across the seat and tugs Alicia’s neck, kissing her breathless, kissing her question away. The herd is within feet and she doesn’t care. She tastes Alicia’s lips, finally, slowly, in a way that she’d be proud of if it were her last kiss on Earth. Dipping her tongue, she earns a moan and feels Alicia relax against her hand that cups her close. It might be the best thing she’s ever done; it is most certainly the thing she’s been aching to do for days. It is good motivation not to die– to be able to do it again, the chance to even try to kiss this girl again, properly.

“Be a good girl and meet me at the boat, yeah?” Elyza pulls away just long enough to see green eyes open, slightly dazed and infinitely worried.

Before she can say anything, Elyza hops from the cab and is off in the opposite direction. She fires three shots in the air and still Alicia can’t move. They hit the truck, bouncing from it, hands sliding down the window.

The panic pulls her throat so tightly she still can’t fathom the kiss. Her head swirls and she is terrified, but she sits perfectly still, staring from the driver’s seat towards the girl who runs a little bit then waits. Alicia nearly yelps as one comes from the side. But Elyza knows, shoots it before it’s within three feet.

Her hands grip the shotgun tighter as she watches the river of the dead split and wash past her. Too soon, Elyza is out of her sight, turning and leading them down another road, shooting those who are in her path.

Alicia waits to see a break before flooring the truck, hitting a few in her path.

* * *

By the time she makes it to the boat, Alicia hasn’t breathed since before Elyza kissed her. Her knuckles are white and weary as she hops out and steadies herself, the walker on the pier turning as she pulled up.

She’s stared into their eyes before, seen them, of course, but never has she taken one down. She waits, growing more and more nervous as it gets closer. Her first shot is low, causing it to bounce back slightly from the force to its chest. Her shoulder feels the brunt of the recoil. A second later, she pulls the trigger and its head ceases to exist.

In a gasp, Alicia breathes, inhaling as if she’s finally above water, as if she’d been drowning the entire ride there. She drops the barrel of the gun and feels her lungs floundering.

As hard as it is, she makes herself move, not allowing herself time to panic.

She checks her watch as soon as she grabs the bag from the back, shoulders the shotgun, and hauls another box, making her way to the boat.

To say she has zero experience on a boat would be an overstatement somehow, and still hyped up on adrenaline and pure fear, focusing becomes increasingly difficult. But Alicia closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and tries to remember what Elyza showed her.

She first notices her hands are shaking when she turns on the engine, and once again when she jumps back onto the dock and pulls off the ropes. She refuses to look at her watch again, except she gives in and swallows her guilt.

For the next few minutes, she does nothing but stand there, peering out, back at the town and the shore, intermittently looking at her watch as the lead in her belly sinks further to her feet.

She waits an extra minute before turning back to the steering wheel. With a final glance over her shoulder, she debates, she hesitates, she prays.

A shot rings out and she peers at the street, noticing the hubbub approaching with a familiar shade of blonde at the forefront. Her heart leaps into her chest again, lighter than a feather.

“Elyza!” She shouts, waving her hand over her head as the boat begins to drift from the pier.

As she gets closer, Alicia notices the dirt on her clothes, the blood streaked down her face and in her hair, sees the knife glittering and dripping in one hand and the pistol in the other as they pump through the air, propelling her forward. Her left leg limps along, blood shading the jeans covering what would be a wound, but still, she sprints through it.

A few more shots ring out over her shoulder as she turns down the pier. With an unheard of effort, Elyza thrusts herself onto the boat, barely clearing the gap, but tumbling to the ground in a heaving heap.

As they drift away, Alicia simply stares at the blonde as she tries to catch her breath, not moving for a few minutes.

“I told you seven minutes,” Elyza scolds, as soon as she can breathe. She swallows and looks up, meeting Alicia’s eyes with a goofy grin.

All she can do is shake her head in disbelief before sharing her smile.


	3. Chapter 3

The ocean is quiet with the noon sun purposefully subduing it into submission for the moment. Not even a hundred yards from shore, the two girls catch their breath and watch the dock become infested, watch it wobble with the weight, watch the water fill with drowning things that do not know they are drowning.

The adrenaline that once pushed Elyza through the town begins to wear off once she catches her breath, once she looks at Alicia and sees she made it unscathed, or as unscathed as she could. She heaves herself up, holding her arm gingerly against her side, her ribs taking the brunt of her landing when she made a jump for the boat.

For the first time, once they feel far enough away, they take stock of each other. Elyza tries to figure out all that happened, tries to see what can be done, no longer hopped up on her daring escape. It all clicks at once, that Alicia is alive, that she has blood covering her shirt and face, that her eyes are wide and her body tense.

“What happened?” She asks, concern lacing her words. Alicia swallows and shakes her head, dismissing the worry. “You ran into one?”

“It’s fine,” Alicia pulls her chin away as Elyza tries to size up the damage. It doesn’t deter the blonde, and the girl lets her hold her face the second time. “Up close and personal.”

For a moment, Elyza smiles before using her thumb to wipe away some of the dirt and blood dried on Alicia’s cheek. 

It wasn’t that she thought her plan wouldn’t work, but more that she was surprised that it did so well, despite the run-in the girl must have faced. Alicia watches Elyza focus upon the work of worrying and cleaning her up. It makes her feel small. Safe, and small, and for just a second, astonishing, all the while her nerves are on fire, muscles taut and ready to snap.

“You look tough.”

“Just need a leather jacket and motorcycle, huh?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

She doesn’t want to, but Alicia meets Elyza’s eyes for a long breath, for a long, hidden, just their’s, moment, before finally pulling away, her chin finally her own and no longer held in her palm. The chaos of the past twenty minutes feels as if a lifetime has transpired, and she has no way to catch up with it all. Being so close to her lips and blue eyes don’t help.

“Are you alright?” she looks at the gash on the side of Elyza’s leg. As if she’d forgotten, Elyza furrows and looks down at her leg before remembering. She looks at her arm firmly pressed against her side, stabilizing her ribs. All at once, she feels it. Alicia isn’t sure what is her blood and what is the muck of the kills she must have done, but there’s a lot of it, some even starting to puddle near their feet.

“Oh, yeah, no, just a scratch,” she looks back up and meets Alicia’s eyes, both knowing the lie. She smiles like she’s been caught by a teacher swapping notes. 

With no wasted movement, Elyza tosses her guns, her knives, her ridiculous amount of weaponry onto the bench on the deck and fails at hiding every wince with each movement. 

“Let me help,” Alicia offers, holding the injured girls arm. 

“Just help me down to the cabin. I’ll get patched up and we’ll head out. We’re on a mission, after all.” 

It’s slow going, but Alicia helps as best she can, as best Elyza lets her. Finally sitting by the small table, she begins to size it up. Alicia goes to work digging out the medical kit. 

By the time she turns around with it, Elyza has run her knife along the gash and split open her pant’s leg. The wound is deep, is large, is still bleeding. She hisses slightly when she touches it before beginning to dig in the kit.

“Fucking bastards,” Elyza growls, pouring antiseptic on it. 

“Let me,” Alicia steps forward, kneeling by the wound. In all her anger, Elyza wants to snap, but refrains, grinding her teeth instead, flexing her jaw against the bitterness. 

Gently, and altogether new to it, Alicia cleans as best she can while the blonde occasionally swears under her breath and grunts with the ache. 

“It didn’t get too close to you, did it?” she asks, watching a soft hand push on her wound to try to slow the bleeding. 

“No,” Alicia lies. “You’d have been proud.” 

“I bet,” she grins before hissing. She watches her own blood stain the rags pressing into it. “It’s bleeding too much. I need you to turn on the stove.” 

“I don’t see how those are related.” 

“Just trust me,” Elyza murmurs, taking over pressure. “Going to teach you something new today. Might help one day.” 

With her free hand, she pours alcohol on the blade of her knife, cleaning it thoroughly. In a second, she sets it on the tiny stove. 

“I don’t think I like where this is going,” the brunette worries, changing the bandage and pressing harder to try to stop the blood. She sees how ashen Elyza’s face has grown. 

“Me neither, princess. C’est la guerre.” 

“I was worried sick about you, you know.” 

“Yeah? Be a doll and help me out of these pants.” 

The moving is difficult, but Alicia realizes how wounded the blonde saviour really is, how banged up she’d been in the past, when not a single remark is made about her being without pants. No witty remark, no flirtatious smirk. To Alicia, the situation must be dire. Another bandage fills with blood and she tries again. It strikes her once more, the worry, that Elyza might not be around, that she lost her. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” she ventures as Elyza reaches for the knife, now glowing. 

“Patching up my bloody leg, what’s it look like, woman?”

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m certainly not doing it for fun,” Elyza psyches herself up. “Hand me that belt, won’t you, gorgeous?” 

“Why?” 

“You can look away, love,” the blonde nods, staring at her own leg, nodding, as if daring herself to do it. She slips the belt between her teeth and presses down, whining at the contact. 

For the life of her, Alicia is unsure if she has anything like what she’s seeing now. She’s incapable of looking anywhere else, as much as she wants to leave, as much as she wants to be anywhere else. The pain contorts Elyza’s face and makes her throat constrict. Alicia watches her chest heave with the effort as the knife moves up the long cut. 

Halfway through, Elyza stops and tries to catch her breath. She pours more alcohol on the blade, cleans the wound, sets the knife back on the stove. 

“I’m sorry,” Alicia shakes her head. 

“Not your fault,” Elyza promises with a smile. “Can you hand me the bourbon? It’s in the drawer with the guns.” She earns a look and disapproving glance. “Let me set your leg on fire repeatedly and then you can give me judgy eyes.” 

“No judgement.” 

“Good.” 

The second round goes just as the first, and as best she can, though her hands are shaking, Elyza cleans the tender skin. Alicia watches the entire thing, forcing herself to remember what it feels like to see someone in so much pain, reminding herself to be brave. 

The noises from the shore grow distant as the commotion dies down. Out here, so close, yet so far, a weird kind of peace exists between the living and the not. Even in the cabin, even with the afternoon breeze and waves, they can hear the commotion they cause on shore still. 

“Take these,” Alicia instructs, thrusting out her hand with pills she grabs from the kit. “I couldn’t find any pain pills, but there’s an Ibuprofen to take the edge off. Antibiotic to help infection” Elyza downs them with the bourbon.

“Thanks, babe.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Right as rain.” Her forehead is covered in sweat, her chest heaving, but still Elyza pretends to be alright. 

“Will you let me?” Alicia grows impatient of the stubborn blonde struggling to make her hands stop trembling and tie the bandage around the freshly cauterized wound. She doesn’t wait for an actual answer, but instead just takes over, kneeling in front of her.

“I like it when you’re pushy,” Elyza grins, finally giving in. “Feel free to boss me around anytime, princess.”

“Seems to be the only thing you understand,” she mutters, shaking her head and taking the bandage.

Carefully, Alicia wraps the thigh, her fingers moving deftly and carefully, doing her best work despite not knowing full well how else to help. For a moment, an instant, she misses and longs for the cabin on the hill. 

“Thank you. For saving my life again,” she nods, looking up at Elyza from beneath her lashes. She’s afraid and remembers it all in vivid detail.

“All in a day’s work.”

“It’s not. It was stupid, you know? What you did?” She shakes her head, dismissing the words that hang around. “Brave, and stupid.”

“That’s me in a nutshell.”

“Don’t go taking risks you don’t need to again, okay?”

“What do you mean? I had to,” Elyza shrugs.

“I know… I just… I’d be… I would miss you, if something were to happen,” she confesses, tying the bandage and standing as the words are finally out. She can feel the blonde’s smirk, she can still taste her lips. “You’re not a garbage bag kid to me.”

As she busies herself cleaning up, Elyza watches Alicia, surprised by her words. She sits still for a moment before pondering it over. Carefully, she slips on her new pants. When the pain shoots through her, she swallows it down. As much as she jokes about it, the idea of the brunette caring is suddenly heavy and different and real and consuming.

“No more half-assed plans,” she finally promises.

“Thank you.”

“Only whole-assed ones.”

“Elyza.”

“You want to kiss me, don’t you?” She stands, carefully testing her leg, cautiously pressing her rib and inhaling deeply.

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“I kissed you and now you’re in love with me.”

“I never said that.”

“I told you. One week, a few talks, some innuendos. Boom. You fell for me.”

“I’m honestly not sure I don’t entirely not hate you,” Alicia shrugged. “You’re impossible.” She huffs and sighs all at once, dismissing the cocky words, but deep down Alicia knows they’re true. She’ll fight them tooth and nail, but still, she knows. “Can we get back to work now? Do you have that all out of your system?”

“Lead the way, princess.”

* * *

With the sun finally retreating under the horizon, the boat merely sways in the soft current. Anchor down and sails tied, they sit with shore still in sight, hugging close to land. The breeze chills their skin after the long day in the sun, and they enjoy the way it feels.

Wrapped in a blanket, covering her shoulders, Alicia leans over and steals Elyza’s cigarette. Plucks it from her lips as they both lounge on the cushions. At first, Elyza opens her mouth to protest, but instead decides against it. In the half-light of the almost sunset, she watches the end burn red and angry in the almost dark, watches it dangle between Alicia’s fingers, long and delicate and graceful. With barely a movement, she pulls a sucker from her pocket and leans back, propping her legs out long before her. 

Sore as she is, she gently rubs her hand along her pants, testing the hurt, testing her muscles, already afraid of how it will feel in the morning. But that’s tomorrow’s problem, and for now, they settle in for their fourth night on the water, doing nothing more than gazing at the stars and letting the day sink into their thoughts. 

The days are full of wondering, sailing, peering, surveying the shore, recovering, and promising. It doesn’t go unnoticed that the kiss is never mentioned, nor does either admit that something has changed. Still, Elyza flirts. Ostentatiously and without recourse. Still, Alicia blushes and shakes her head. They have more talks though. They talk to each other, wonder aloud about life and the world. There is an ease between them that has been building since the cabin.

“The stars are nice,” Elyza tries, knowing full well that not finding Alicia’s family has her worried. “One good part of the end of humanity as we know it.”

“We used to go camping, back when I was just a kid, and even out in the desert I don’t ever remember seeing so many.”

“Back home, I used to sneak out and go to the planetarium. Ditched school. I’d steal a few bucks from whoever I was staying with. It was my favourite place in the entire world.” She sighs and tilts her head up again, seeing all of the lights so far away. 

Alicia observers her profile and sees the amazement in her eyes as she gazes out into nothing. She flicks the cigarette out to the ocean, unwilling to admit that she only craved Elyza’s lips and ached to be close to them. With a small sigh, she leans her head on the blonde’s bare shoulder and stares out where the darkness meets the sky. 

“This place isn’t so bad,” Elyza grins, unable to look down and see the girl using her as a pillow. 

The wind runs through the ropes, clangs together hooks, but it is still so quiet on the edge of the galaxy that the two don’t mind at all. The rhythm of the new world soothes their sunburned skin and bruises accumulated from life, now. 

“Does it get easier?” Alicia wonders, tugging on the blanket a bit. “The killing.” 

“Yeah,” Elyza promises. “It does. But it’s not killing. They’re not alive. It’s self-defence. It’s survival.” 

“My neighbour turned. She was the first I saw. She was still so… human. To see that, but they’re gone. It’s messed up.” 

“Yeah,” she hums. 

“I don’t like it.” 

“Well, I like it enough for the both of us, so I can do the heavy lifting. You just stand beside me and look good.” It works, and Elyza is relieved when she earns a small chuckle and head shake accompanied by a deeper burrow into her arm. 

“No. I’ll do it. I’m not afraid.” 

“I never thought you were.” 

“Yes you did.” 

“Not once.” 

“I’ll do it. I’ll get better at it.” 

“Okay.” 

The stars shimmer and the moon illuminates the world just enough, and nothing more. The water laps against the boat and neither wants to ever move, neither wants time to tick or the evening to end because for this moment, for one inkling of time, they find peace. In the quiet, after sunset, with the longing to never move again, Alicia allows herself to wonder if she even wants to find her family or if she would be truly happy here forever. It makes her uncomfortable to want so many contradictory things.

“Do you think we’ll find them?” Alicia asks. 

“Yeah, I really do.” 

“What if we don’t?” 

“Don’t do that,” Elyza insists, sitting up slightly. She lifts her arm and wraps it around the girl snuggled against her. “We will. The ocean is big. We’re only about twenty miles south of the cabin. Lots of ocean left.” 

“But what if we can’t find them?” 

“We won’t stop looking.” 

“What happens when we do then?” Alicia whispers. Her fingers move along the bone of the blonde’s knee, softly tracing words and thoughts there. 

The words are something Elyza has refused to vocalize, though have plagued her thoughts since they found their boat. She doesn’t like either option. To find Alicia’s family meant she would go, and then she would return back to her life of killing as many as she could until she eventually made a mistake and became one. To not find them meant Alicia would be heartbroken.

“I’ll have kept my promise. I’ll deliver you safe and sound.”

“Elyza.” 

“Say my name again. I like how it sounds when you do.” 

“You’ll stay with us, won’t you?” 

“I don’t know. I have things to do.” 

“No you don’t,” Alicia sat up slightly. 

“I’m going to save the world.” 

“Why can’t you do that and stay with me?” 

“Ah, so it’s you that wants me around now, huh?” Elyza jokes. “I guess you’re getting a bit attached.” 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“Sweet talker.” 

“Don’t you want me?” 

For longer than she thinks possible, the question lingers between them. Elyza is certain Alicia can feel her heart thumping in her chest. The blood pools in her ears, makes her hear flutter. 

“Come on,” she swallows though her mouth is dry. “It’s not… I can’t… You’re…” 

Alicia sits up, pulls away, and can almost feel Elyza blushing, her stammering oddly new and real and perhaps more honest than any actual sentence she could have formed at that moment. 

“So when you can have me, you don’t want me? Just the chase, to break up the day?” 

“No, that’s not it at all,” Elyza promises. 

“Don’t go away,” Alicia asks. “You make things normal. You make… I’m not afraid. You make me feel like I’m not just surviving. I feel alive.” 

“You don’t want me. I promise,” Elyza shakes her head, standing and walking across the deck. “I’m going to get you back to your family. All we can do is survive. That’s all we have anymore. I’m not someone who sticks around,” she shrugs, making her way inside. “That’s not me. Rolling stone and such. I’m the same as before, just like you.”

Petulant and angry, Alicia crosses her arms and watches. For the longest time, she feels the sting of honesty and embarrassment. It quickly turns to anger. It boils up inside her with the realization and worry that maybe there is no more living. That the past week is nothing more than a lie. 

The deck is quiet. The groans and moans from the shore sail out on the calm waters, reminding her that they are never out of danger, but simply existing with it. It infuriates her beyond belief. 

If her family is gone, if this is all that’s left, there has to be more. 

“You don’t get to do that,” Alicia yells, stomping down the steps to the cabin where Elyza has taken a seat, pouring herself a glass of the leftover bourbon. 

“It’s just a drink.” 

“Not that,” the brunette dismisses, her hands waving, unsure of where all of this comes from. “You don’t get to decide what living is.” 

“Listen princess,” Elyza stands in the small space. She earns a shove a moment later. Both are surprised by the action, but Alicia does it again. Not hard, but enough. 

“You don’t get to flirt with me and then drop me off just to go get yourself killed.” Another shove. All of her hate for the world now, for what life has become, for the entire universe taking a collective shit upon humanity; it all comes now.

“Can’t we just have a nice night with the stars?” Elyza asks. 

“No.” 

“You’re so damn spoiled!” 

“I am not!” Both seethe and glare at the other, angry at themselves though taking it out on anyone else. “You’re an ass.” She pushes Elyza once more until she hits the wall in the tiny room. 

“Listen, princess,” Elyza rose tall, straightening her spine. “The world isn’t cupcakes and freshman year, rush week, Mommy got a divorce so I’m going to–”

Her words are stopped by Alicia tugging on her shirt and kissing her. It surprises her, it feels different than before, but perhaps it is because she is the one getting grabbed. 

It only takes a second for the blonde to respond, and Alicia is grateful. She kisses her as she wishes she could have kissed her back in the truck a few days ago, as if their lives depended upon it, because chased by monsters or safe on the boat, both moments were life threatening in different ways. She would call her naive, but Alicia knows she is right. And so she kisses Elyza, balling her hands into fists, clutching her closer to prove something.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Elyza pulls away as much as she can, swallowing and meeting Alicia’s eyes. The proximity kills her. 

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Alicia assures her, determined and focused before kissing her once more. 

This time is different. She feels Elyza relax, feels her push back until she is the one pinned against the wall instead of the injured blonde. Her back hits, strong and hard, and she winces, though refuses to let anything take her lips away from Elyza’s. Pinned there, she feels hands on her hips, that migrate to her neck, hold her cheeks, and as rough as it is, there’s a tenderness that surprises her. Her knuckles are white and sore holding onto the clothing, 

There is a slight growl of complaint that comes when Elyza slips her hands down her hips, and picks her up, the pain evident, though as Alicia pulls away, she is silenced again. Her hands slide around Elyza’s shoulders, grab there as her legs wrap around her waist. 

The lingering sip of bourbon sits on Elyza’s lips, and Alicia thinks that if only it tasted this good from the bottle, she’d have a serious problem. In her life she can’t remember being kissed like this. Anger quickly turns, and she moans as somehow she is placed in the bed in the back of the cabin. Her legs don’t unlock, her hands don’t ease; she can’t stop grasping for air. 

Hands rooted in soft brown hair, Elyza wills herself to stop. She tries, but she feels tongue and teeth and her mouth opens wider to protest through appeasement. Pressed against her, Alicia feels small, feels mighty, feels soft, feels warm, feels alive. She allows herself one more minute. 

“You’re going to stay,” Alicia murmurs in the dark. As much as Elyza tries to fight it, she knows she’s right. She’s known it for days, since the thought first snuck up on her. “That’s who you are now. We’re different. We can be different.” 

All she can do is kiss her. 

Hands tug at her shirt and she’s pulling it over her head in a minute. Elyza wastes no time in lifting Alicia’s and kissing along her sternum, her fingers tugging pants lower before unbuttoning. 

It’s frantic, it’s built up, it’s been a while. 

When her hips raise to let her shorts be tugged off, Alicia throws her shirt off and pulls Elyza back to her. She runs her hands over her cheeks, her neck, feels her heart beating like a gong in her chest. 

“Tell me to go, princess,” Elyza begs. Her jaw clenches between Alicia’s palms. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere else. Make me go.”

“I’ll teach you to stay,” Alicia promises. Her hands roam over Elyza’s face, knit in her hair and pull her back down so she can have her lips once more. 

It takes until dawn. Until the sky begins to brighten and the small cabin. Until the portholes turn pale blue and golden. Elyza isn’t finished, hasn’t nearly gotten her fill, has’t even come close, but Alicia can barely open her eyes. 

Despite Alicia’s fingertips on her neck, playing with her hair, rubbing her jaw, she can’t quite fall asleep. The light of the new day distracts her, brings about all the things that happened in the dark. It’s difficult work, but she extracts herself from the brunette in her bed.

For a moment, Elyza stands at the foot of the bed and watches her sleep, limbs tossed where she’d just been, sheets clinging to her body, hair wild and free. If she thought she was beautiful the first day she saw her, she was the reason someone could forget to breathe or fight a million monsters. She’s everything good, curled up in bed. Elyza gets it, now. She understands the living versus surviving thing, seeing Alicia there. 

She pulls on her pants, her body sore and aching from the night and her recovery. Her ribs still ache. She takes another pill and drinks from her hand in the sink. 

After she finds a shirt, she hobbles her way to the deck and pulls out her last cigarette, her trusty lighter ready to help her kick the habit. The dawn is pink and she runs her hand through her hair, gazing out at the world. It looks different, now. For the first time since it all went to hell, she lets herself wonder if it’s okay to be alive or if she’s setting both of them up for failure. 

The last thing she remembers, before the sharp pain in the back of her head, is that she’s going to stay. That maybe it is just a decision. 

But the world goes black before she can mull it any longer.

* * *

Consciousness comes slowly as Elyza wakes to the throbbing pain of her left side. Her ribs wobble as she tries to take a deep breath, though inevitably fails. She tries to swallow and open her eyes, but neither want to happen. Her hands try to move but are cuffed above her head somehow. 

“Morning sunshine,” a voice mutters, soft and calm. She lulls her head towards the sound and finally opens her eyes, finding it difficult to focus. 

“G’day, mate,” she coughs. Her lungs try to compensate but can’t inhale enough. She knows her ribs have been re-fractured. She knows that her leg is aching, bleeding again.

“You bit?” he asks. 

“Fuck off,” Elyza spits, watching him circle her. 

The rifle points firmly under her chin, lifting it slightly. She meets his eyes. No more than sixty, he is short, but the way he holds himself is firm, a tougher match than he lets on. Her hands grasp the cuff chain to relieve some pressure on her wrists.

“Are you bitten?” he asks again, calm and measured, as he jabs her leg with the other end of the gun. Elyza feels every inch of pain crawl through her body. It drowns her, but she swallows, breathing quickly. 

“Get stuffed,” she wheezes. 

With a shake of his head, the man pulls a knife from his pocket and cuts into her jeans, exposing the wound. 

“Hey, fuck off, softcock. Do you know,” she inhales and tries to steady herself, “how hard it is to find pants at the end of the world.” He leans down and inspects, ignoring her. “I’m down to my last pair after this.” 

“Why were you out here?” he stands and eyes her again after his inspection. Carefully he folds his knife and puts it back in his pocket.

“Where is she?” Elyza ignores him as well. “Alicia!” her voice is more of a bark and doesn’t carry very far. She can’t see too far from the back of the boat. Blood smears her eyes.

“How do you know her?”

“What did you do to her?” the prisoner asks again, tugging on her wrists, snarling and fierce. 

“You seem to be misunderstanding,” he tsk’s, shaking his head. “It is my turn to ask questions.” A punch lands on her hurt ribs, and Elyza sees stars. 

“I’ll kill you,” she grunts, her teeth gnashing together so hard she’s afraid her jaw will break. “If you hurt her.” 

“Where did you get these weapons?” 

“I’m Australian, you drongo. You’ll run out of questions before I run out of ways to tell you to fuck off.” 

She earns a chuckle from the man and lets her head droop forward. She struggles but spits out whatever is in her mouth, watches the blood drip down her face and land on the ground. There isn’t one part of her that doesn’t hurt.

“Sit tight,” he lifts her chin again with the rifle. She pulls away and growls, though doesn’t have the air to mutter anymore obscenities. 

As best she can, she hangs there and tries to breathe, sits up on her tiptoes. pulls her necklace and goes to work. Raw and hurting, her wrists fumble. Her ears strain to hear anything at all. She can’t turn around, but she can’t hear anything. She imagines they’re farther off the coast. Her boat is no where to be seen, but this one is bigger. Her mind starts racing, compensating for her hurt as the tries to formulate a plan.

“Elyza?” a voice she recognizes finally startles her. “What are you doing to her?” Wearily, she lifts her head and sees Alicia. She smiles, or at least tries, unsure if her body does it. Her face is bloodied and her mind is woozy.

“We don’t know her,” a voice comes from the herd of people that follow the stomping girl. 

“Hey, princess,” the prisoner grins when she gets close enough. 

“Alicia! Wait! We don’t know anything about her,” a man pulls her back. 

“For fuck’s sake,” she shakes her head. “If she wanted to kill you all she would have. She’s not even cuffed.”

“I have the keys,” the older man steps forward, rifle firmly in his other hand. A younger kid moves to her side, not within reach, but closer. 

“Yeah, no need, mate,” Elyza lifts her hands, one with the cuffs dangling. She doesn’t put her arms down, as much as she wants to, because all she needs is to make it this far and get shot.

It is reflex, when someone lunges in her peripherals. Sore and hurt as she is, Elyza grabs the gun and bashes sit on the back of her assailants head so that the kid goes down with a thwack, face first on the boat. 

“Elyza!” Alicia admonishes, yelping her name as everyone else jumps. Travis moves forward and Alicia steps between the blonde and her family as the wild thing raises the gun to defend herself. “She’s safe. She saved me.”

“Honey, she’s dangerous. Look at Chris!” A woman moves and kneels over the unconscious boy. 

“Fuck off. She’s telling the truth,” Elyza exclaims, now brandishing a weapon.

“Hey,” Alicia turns to her and gives her a pleading look. “Just calm down.”

“What?” Elyza snaps, shrugging her shoulders innocently, hip jutting out annoyed. “How the fuck is it… I didn’t do anything!” she shakes her head and looks between the girl and her family. “Look at my pants! I was strung up!”

“Please, just give me a minute,” Alicia sighs. She watches Elyza’s jaw clench and lips purse before turning back to the group that simply watches, all itchy to do something. “We can explain. Let me explain.” Her head volleys between both sides of the boat, trying to keep cool heads and such.

“Fucking bull. I fucking swear. Save her,” she mutters to herself as she looks down and pulls the clip from the pistol. “It’ll be fucking easy. Why not? Fucking sail the seven fucking seas. Fuck the fucking–” she sasses herself before ejecting the bullet in the chamber and throwing them all on the ground.”Fuckwits.” 

She looks back up at Alicia when she’s through, tossing her hands up, not hiding one ounce of how miffed she is at the situation, challenging her to do something, ready to let loose her tongue and probably fists.

“Elyza saved me that day. She’s not bit,” the girl promises, hands still up between the two, and looking at her family. “She brought me out here to find you. She saved me that day, stitched me up, took care of me, and saved me again on our way to the boat. That’s why she’s hurt. We can lower the weapons because she’s with me. She’s good.” 

“We looked all over for you,” the woman Elyza guesses to be Alicia’s mother explains. “We heard you last night. She was hurting you.” 

Elyza let out a good laugh, a real bark of a guffaw. Alicia turns her head, blushing more than the blonde ever imagined possible, though stern look clearly plastered there. 

“I’m fine. She’s done nothing but help me find you,” Alicia promises. The weapons begin to lower and Elyza relaxes, pushing her hand against the new wound on her head. 

It takes a moment, but Travis steps forward first, gun in one hand, shoved into his holster, other hand stretched out. With a look, Elyza sizes it up before shaking it with her non-bloody hand. 

“Thank you,” he nods. “I’m sorry for… the precautions.” 

“S’alright,” she mumbles. “No worries, mate. Would have done the same.” He just lets their hands drop and sighs. 

“Let’s get you both cleaned up,” he offers, lifting the boy on the ground as he began to stir.

“I’ll do it,” Alicia offers, noticing how warily Elyza looks at the rest of the crowd. “Just… give us a minute.” Her mother wants to argue. “We’ll be okay.”

Amidst a few nods and murmurs of welcome, Elyza patiently waits for the group to be ushered away. She picks the other wrist free from the cuffs and tosses them on the floor with the gun, her shoulder blades and muscles aching. Everything hurts, she decides, and she’d sleep for days if that was possible. 

“I’m sorry,” Alicia offers, stepping forward with damp rag and the medical kit from the well on the side of the boat. 

“They did the right thing,” Elyza nods, not even fighting the girl who tries to wipe up her head. “I’m a stranger. It’s safer. But I think that old bastard enjoyed it.” 

“Probably,” she smiles, dabbing at the blood.

“You know, it wasn’t my fault,” the patient explains again. “That kid lunged at me.”

“I appreciate you not hurting them worse.” 

“Yeah, well. I got you here. Kind of stupid to kill your family.” 

“Counterproductive,” Alicia offers.

“Yeah.” 

From the window of the back room, Alicia’s mother watches the two together. Her daughter places a bandage over the wound before moving to the leg while the blonde tests her ribs and grimaces. 

Her daughter kisses the blonde’s knee and rests her chin there as she watches her say something while pressing a cloth to the freshly opened wound.

“I thought we lost her,” she murmurs as Travis approaches behind. 

“We got lucky.” 

“How’s Chris?” 

“Sore. But he’ll survive. Got a good wallop. That girl’s impressive.” 

“What do you think that’s about?” 

“I don’t know,” Travis sighs and kisses his wife’s head. “But we got Alicia back, and that’s all that matters anymore. She has her own security. Makes it a little easier not to worry about her.” 

From her spot on the deck, Alicia closes her eyes as Elyza pushes her hair from her face. She checks the wound, grateful it is stopping on its own. 

“Believe it or not, this wasn’t the worst time a girl’s family interrupted me and their daughter.” She earns a chuckle. 

“You’re still going to stay, right?” 

“You’re spoiled.” 

It’s not a yes, but Alicia knows those words, knows that she’s won. She takes it. She has a lot to make up to Elyza, and this is step one, whether she knows it or not.


	4. Chapter 4

In the dark, there is nothing to see on the water. The sky melds into the ocean and the stars jump from the heavens to the sea, skinny dipping with reckless abandon and no reverence at all for the inevitable eyes upon them. The glow of the lights, the small amount of lantern glow, of solar-powered flashlights, of candles whimpering in the breeze, they all create a dome, create a universe that is impossible to truly gaze out from honestly. They shroud the inhabitants with light and they mask the dark, just a stopgap between the inevitable and stronger night.

The evening, the night, the sunset, they’re all difficult. Elyza tries not to move despite the fact that the entire boat is always moving. Not hard, not rough, but that gentle kind of lull that should help her sleep but instead distracts her, keeps her awake, makes her aware that she is trapped, in a sense. As the current moves along, unnoticed and not noticing, she simply lies in bed and is inundated with the events of the day.

She did not sleep when Alicia helped her to their cabin, nor did she put up a fuss when she was nursed and doted upon by the girl with eyes that were almost like granite in the sunlight. But when Alicia left her to rest, Elyza simply laid in bed and planned. She always had a plan, always had a backdoor. Though, for the first time, she hoped she didn’t have to use it, she needed an escape in case this was just like the other times, like the other people that promised to keep her and kicked her to the curb at the earliest sign of trouble.

If she were honest with herself, she knew she was a lot of trouble. She must be.

For the longest time, with her body still tender and aching, she strained her ears and listened to the murmur of voices on the boat docked with her own. In the quiet that came with evening, when the sun wasn’t so loud and the world calmed, as if calling its truce for the night, when the sea wasn’t bitter and the sky wasn’t jealous, she could hear more, she closed her eyes and pictured it from her little bed on the ocean.

From her spot in the middle of the world, Elyza listens to Alicia laugh. She can practically hear the way her mother hugs her and smothers her in affection. The little group congregates and catches up, parts of her own story peppered in as Alicia is questioned as to the state of affairs of the land and the past week. Elyza listens and tries to let her body heal, wills it to heal, tries to make a plan, tries to think of the night before, tries to think of just two weeks ago. Her thoughts swirl and she feels seasick for the first time from the whirling of her own existence more than the boat.

She centres herself by placing her hand on the bandage wrapped around her ribs, so tenderly placed by the girl who frowned and fret over her despite her assurances that she didn’t need it, that she was fine. It suddenly occurred to her that it did not take much to get used to having a girl like that around, as much as she wanted to be opposed to it.

It wasn’t a thought. It was easy. Alicia was easy, as if centuries of lifetimes and millennia of them had played themselves out and they were the byproduct. So easy, that it made Elyza nervous. She hadn’t had a chance to give fate much thought, but maybe it existed. That’d be the only explanation.

“Hey, champ,” Alicia whispers as she crawls into the bed, careful to not break anything already broken on the mending patient. “Did you get some rest?”

“Yeah,” Elyza lies and tilts her head towards the dip in the bed. She doesn’t open her eyes but lets herself feel fingertips on her forehead, down her cheeks, to her neck.

Lips softly touch her own. They linger are fleeting, are reserved, are polite and sweet and taste like salt water on the bow of the boat. She smiles, realizing she’d do a lot of insane things to earn another kiss like that.

“I brought you something to eat.” Her voice is low and the splashing of the water could drown it if it wants. Elyza likes the weight of her hand on her chest. “Thought you might make an appearance tonight. Get a hero’s welcome.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Still hurting?”

“Actually it’s not too bad. You’ll make a good doctor one of these days.”

“You seem set on giving me plenty of practice.”

The crowd on the neighbouring boat chuckles, nothing but a rumble outside the porthole. Alicia ducks her head, nudges Elyza’s temple with her nose, kisses her cheek before burrowing down there, smothering herself in blonde hair and bare neck.

“They’re sorry they did that to you,” she whispers to her shoulder. Elyza doesn’t care about a damn thing outside of this bed, past this moment, in any other lifetime. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”

“I’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re high maintenance.”

“I’m really not.”

“I had to shoot no less than twenty of those things to save you, and steal a boat, to get in your pants. That’s like the definition of high maintenance,” Elyza sighs, adjusting slightly, slipping her hand under Alicia’s shirt to feel her back arch under her nails. “I give up to the will of the universe. You got me, I got you, no matter how high maintenance you are.”

“So that’s all?” Alicia kisses jaw, rests her mouth there, grinning, holding bone between teeth. “You’ve resolved yourself to fawning all over me forever? Giving me whatever I want?”

“Yeah,” Elyza shrugs, quite blunt and honest with her answer, though it earns a laugh and a shake of sun-soaked brown hair as cheeks and smile hide in her neck once more. “I reckon I’ll storm about and complain a bit, but you seem like a good way to spend forever. I mean, not like my plates full, with the world ending and such.”

“You don’t know me. My family strung you up like a human piñata.”

“Some people pay a lot of money for that.”

“Why do you want to stay?”

“You asked me to,” she whispers against forehead. “And I think, for the first time in my entire life, I’m where I’m supposed to be. Why do you want me to stay?”

“The world is falling apart, and I’ve never felt more alive, or happier, or… full, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

There’s no way for her to get closer to the wounded thing in the bed, but still, Alicia can’t stop grasping. It’s an apology of sorts, a promise of another, a hope and an example. Her fingertips run along collarbone, her forehead hides in hair and then shoulder. With wide and great breaths, she inhales the smell of the sea and the bed and Elyza.

If she could, she’d tell her not to go anywhere, that it’s not the end of the world, that she’s dreamed her a thousand times, that she’s quite certain the entire world went to shit just for this exact moment to happen. Instead, she hides in her neck, under her chin, knowing full well how fleeting this is.

“I’ll get to know you,” the blonde promises. “I got to know you pretty good last night. Oouf.” She grins despite the pinch to her non-injured side. Alicia chuckles into her neck, blushes there, nudges chin with the top of her head in her quest to be close and sorry.

The images flash through her head, the fragments of grasping sheets and nails on skin and clutching and biting and that dampness that comes with tempestuous skin.

“Don’t go away,” Alicia whispers. It’s quieter than any other sound that has ever existed. “I know you don’t want to go. I know you don’t know that yet. Not completely.”

“I won’t. I’ll try,” Elyza promises. “And I really couldn’t. You u-hauled me to the middle of the bloody ocean.”

“What am I supposed to do with you?” she sighs, lifting her head up and pushing back her own hair, now a mess from hiding. The only thing Elyza sees is her outline, her profile, her. She feels the wavy, chestnut mane fall over her, tenting her, tickling her skin.

“Listen, you can’t complain once you get what you want.”

A week, and she’s done for completely. A week, and Elyza gives up, goes with it, allows herself to live at the end of the world. In another universe, they couldn’t have existed, but here they are, and here they’ll stay.

Abby once told her that life was a decision, that loving was a decision. Elyza wants to call bullshit on it because she sure as hell didn’t have a choice in any of it.

“Are you okay?”

“Right as rain.”

“I mean it.”

“I’ll heal.”

“I mean it.”

With a heavy sigh, Elyza pulls on Alicia’s shirt so that she can reach her forehead where she kisses quite languidly. She keeps her hands rooted in shirt and stares at the silhouette. 

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to protect me,” Alicia warns, leaning her chin on chest. “Especially from you.” She gets a smile, though she’d never know it.

“I should get hurt more often. You’re a lot nicer to me.”

“It was definitely that thing you did last night that made me nicer. Not your copious injuries.”

“Ah, the Australian Kiss,” Elyza’s chest puffs, cocky and proud. Alicia bursts with a laugh. It shakes the tiny bed and she sits up slightly to hear this explanation. “You know. It’s the same thing as French kiss. But downunder.”

“How many girls have you used that on?”

“Before or after the apocalypse? Oof. Woman, I’m injured! Stop bloody pinching me.”

With nothing more than a gentle tug, she pulls Alicia so that she’s draped atop her. It makes her side hurt, but she doesn’t care at all, not when she’s earned six giggles and eight smiles and at least two blushes. A successful day if she’s ever had one.

“Do you want to meet them? A proper introduction?”

“Tomorrow.”

“They have so many questions for you.”

“You do know that I’m not the meet-the-parents type of girl, right?” Elyza closed her eyes as fingers moved along the lower end of the wrap around her side, lifting shirt, tracing hip bone and making her muscles clench.

“I think you’re the brave kind of girl that puts up with a stranger and keeps her promises. I don’t care about the other types.”

In the quiet, while the ocean falls asleep with the lullabies of the mountains and the rivers teasing it along, Elyza is struck by the notion that she is anything of the sort. Adjectives fly through her head as to what she’s always thought herself to be, and yet none match with what Alicia describes.

It must have been the contact, the skin to skin, the human warmth in her bed, but it was dangerously addicting. Elyza gulps.

Alicia kisses her again and she wonders if she’s ever been kissed like that before, if she’s ever gotten one on her cheek so tenderly, or one on her chin with nothing expected of her, no pushing for more, for less clothes and more hands, but simply just because.

“I promised I’d be back over,” she explains, sitting up slightly. “Don’t know how to break it to Mom that I’m sleeping with the tattooed, leather-clad foreigner with a shotgun for a best friend.”

“You snuck out to see me? We’ll make a rebel of you yet, kid.”

“I want you to rest,” Alicia decides as she sits up completely, adjusting her hair. “And if I stay, you won’t rest.”

“Oh my! How scandalous of you. You are a little rebel. I know your kind,” Elyza props herself up as well as she scoots from the bed. “The prim and proper, but you make them come once and they’re wildcats. Sneaking around behind Mum’s back.”

“It was more than once, and I am not. I just know you.” Hands on hips, Elyza stares at the outline and smirks. She can’t help it. “You’re the world’s most stubborn patient.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“Thank you for finding my family.”

“I reckon they found us.”

“Still. It’s the best thing anyone’s ever done for me. It was very kind.”

“Better go or they’ll think I took your prisoner again.” Alicia crawls back through the bed slightly, kisses her quiet. “Better go or I’ll take you prisoner.”

For a second, for an instant, for a blink, a warm hand slid down her shoulders, down her neck as the brunette in her bed pulled away with a laugh. She lingered. Elyza never understood that word until now.

“Don’t forget to eat.”

The entirety of it was in the dark, but still, Elyza could see that it was her favorite moments in the world.

She decides to stay.

* * *

Tired as she is, Elyza can’t sleep to save her life. It was the fact that she dozed all day. That and the fact that she was wide awake as soon as Alicia meandered back to her family. That and she is addicted to hearing the noises of the family next door. So much so that she fought sleep and merely eavesdrops on them, curious as to what they all are.

Only when it all grows quiet, when the shadows and the lights from next door go dark, does she grab half of the sandwich and meander topside, hoping to catch fresh air and quiet and freedom for a few minutes without wondering eyes.

Her leg hurts, plain and simple. It aches and it feels heavy, but it still moves better than she thought it would as she tests it, walking around the deck. Far off in the distance, the shoreline is dark and shadowed, occasional dots glowing abnormally. Lights or fires who who knows, she thinks, wondering if she can been seen, hobbling around in the middle of the night.

As she stands and looks out, she yanks the gun on her hip and focuses it on the noise behind her, pure habit and survival.

“Oh, God, give me a reason, mate,” she pleads, squinting in the moonlight at the newly familiar form. “Please.”

“Don’t you sleep?” He asks, flicking the lighter and bringing it to his face. Her arms are still sore from being strung up, her ego still wounded from being taken by surprise. With a wave of his hand he casually dismisses the firearm, and so she holsters it.

“Don’t you?”

“No,” he murmurs.

“In a fair fight I would have taken you, just so you know,” Elyza explains, leaning on the railing as he looks out at the water, brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales, causing the ember on the end to glow red and angry at the imposition.

“I don’t fight fair.”

“Yeah,” she nods and sighs. “Me neither.”

The smoke rushes through his nose. Elyza sizes him in the moonlight, tries to figure him out, tries to know him, tries to hate him. It’s not entirely difficult, as her achy body reminds her occasionally. It’s hard to not understand why he did it though. Elyza dislikes that she relates to him so much, that she trusts him more than the others. He knew; he knew how to survive.

“What’s it like out there?” He nudges his head at the world.

For a moment, Elyza thinks about it, stares back at the land and debates what to call it. She doesn’t have a good answer, just an honest one.

“Hell.”

He eyes her in the moonlight, his brow so heavy his eyes are just shadow to her. With a shift, he leaves the cigarette burning nearly to his nose, stuck between his lips, and offers her one from the pack in his pocket.

“I quit,” she dismisses it. He shakes his head, lights another from the end of his burning one, tossing it out and placing the pack back in his shirt pocket.

“I’m not sorry for what I did,” he sits finally, rifle across his lap. She can see the age, how it sits in his joints. “I am sorry that I hurt you after what you did for Alicia.” He watches the blonde ponder his words, stare at the horizon and nod to herself, wrapping her arms around her body, propping her cracked ribs.

They are quiet and Elyza takes a sucker from her pocket, slipping it into her mouth instead of asking for a cigarette. Neither have many words, neither care too much, neither can sleep at all, and neither can figure out why, nor are either ready to delve into the deeper psychosis of such things.

“How many of those did you kill?” He asks.

“One thousand, four hundred and forty… nine,” she decides, tabulating the last few days in her head wearily. “Yeah, fourteen forty-nine.”

“You keep track?”

“Every single one.”

“Why?”

“To make myself think I’ve done something good.” He chuckles at the notion. She smiles as well at the ridiculousness of it. “I don’t know. I had nothing else to do.”

“How many living did you kill?”

He watches the girl closely as the words come out of his mouth. He waits to see her tense, to see her relax, to see something, yet she betrays nothing, not an inkling of regret, nor sadness, nor eagerness for more.

“Four.”

“Do you think they cancel out?”

“No,” she sighs, desperately craving a cigarette.

“Why did you kill them?”

“What is this, an interview?”

“Yes.” He was calm and flicked the butt of the cigarette out into the water, never looking at the girl beside him. He knew she toyed with her gun, picked at the holster. He could not read her and it was the most terrifying notion.

“It was them or me. I couldn’t let it be them.”

“Changes you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think about it.”

It takes a second, but he stands, pushing himself up, putting the rifle on his shoulder lazily. He can be intimidating, he knows this, and yet here he is, not detecting an ounce of fear. Deadly or stupid, he can’t figure it out, and so he ponders it as he moves.

“You will help me keep them alive,” he decides, huggin the rifle to his chest as he pulls out another cigarette. This time he offers again.

Elyza looks at the pack and moves her hair from her face before accepting. She leans forward and uses the lighter he holds out before doing his own. She inhales deeply and lifts her head completely to the sky to blow out the smoke.

“What makes you think I’m the person who can do that?” She ventures. “Almost fifteen hundred of those things isn’t impressive. If anything it’s reckless.”

“The four and the one,” he decides. “That’s,” he juts his cigarette in the air, punctuating his words. “That’s how I know you are that person.”

“The one?”

“The one you saved.”

In the east, the sky grows grey, grows not as dark, grows weary and wakeful. No sun yet, but still, it is coming, and fight as they could, it’s going to arrive with or without them. Elyza tosses her butt into the water, watches the red sail through the greyness that surrounds them now.

“You’re all grossly overestimating who you think I am, mate.”

“Maybe,” he wagers. “We’ll see.”

With no other words, Elyza gives up, distracted by it all and the dawn. She gives up herself and she gives up being awake, suddenly feeling sick and every inch of what her body has been through in the past few days.

The girl catches the last bit of star before she begins to walk back towards her bed as it suddenly beckons her.

“Seriously. If I’m your best hope, you might want to have a backup plan.”

She doesn’t wait for a reply, but simply leaves him there, looking at the horizon as if he were a man searching for something just out there. She closes the door and climbs in bed, finally exhausted and ready to be anywhere else for a few hours.

* * *

The first week on the boat could have gone worse. Alicia knows this, and in all reality, she also knows that it really couldn’t have gone any better. A vague success in her book, seeing as the blonde didn’t punch anyone, nor did she draw her weapon once. A middling victory in that her mother only gave her a few looks of confusion about the girl who swore too much and ate lollipops like they were going out of style.

“You came in so late and still managed to get up before me,” Alicia yawns, stretching slightly as she emerges from the cabin with two warm mugs in her hands..

“I sleep really well when you’re in bed,” Elyza shrugs, looking up only slightly as she continues to take apart and clean a gun.

“Why can’t you be this sweet around my family?”

“It’s not sweet if it’s the truth.”

“I’ll teach you to stay in bed one of these days,” Alicia sighs and gives up the fight, setting the mug of instant coffee on the table covered in maps, all pinned to the edge with various weapons as weights.

“Of that, I have no doubt, gorgeous.”

It’s useless, to try to pretend not to be distracted, and so when Alicia slides between her legs, Elyza isn’t even bothered. In the early morning sun, that pure kind of light that makes the world seem blinding, that makes the water glow and dance, she decides that there isn’t a better way to start the day.

“Thank you,” she smiles as Alicia takes a seat on her thigh, as she runs her hand down her temple, kisses her forehead, all while precariously balancing her own mug in her other hand.

“You and Daniel were up late last night again.” It’s an observation and Elyza can practically taste where it’s going. She just sips her coffee and nods. “How’d it go?”

“Swell.”

“I’m going with them today.” There it is. Elyza burns her tongue with an eager gulp.

“No.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Can’t we just sit and have coffee and not fight?” Elyza asks, already knowing the answer and preparing herself for it. “It’s such a nice morning, and you’re so damn pretty.”

“Yeah, of course,” Alicia agrees into her coffee. “It’s not much of a fight, since I’m not asking.”

For a second, Elyza debates it. She puts her mug down and debates if she’s capable of just having a nice morning before realizing that it’s gone. That she was suckered with distraction coffee and lips and hips and those short shorts.

“Alright,” she agrees. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

“You can’t.”

“Fuck I can’t.” As soon as the words are from her mouth, Alicia merely presses on her side, earning a grunt and doubling over of the girl she’s using as a chair. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re recovering. And I want to go. They need me.”

“Yeah, well, no offense, but the last time you went out with them you met a psychopath with a shotgun and a motorcycle after they bloody lost you because they can’t handle themselves.”

“Psychopath is a bit strong. You’re spirited.”

“The last time you went out you nearly died, and I won’t be there to save you.”

“I can save myself now.”

“Two weeks later and you can save yourself?” Elyza scoffs. “Pardon me, love,” she murmurs politely. She stands and puts her hands on her hips as Alicia takes the seat, crossing her legs and watching the display over her mug as she sips. “Two weeks later and you’re suddenly a badass who can take on forty of those things at once huh? Two weeks,” she raves, pacing back and forth, favoring her better leg as the other still healed. “Two fucking weeks and you think you can take one of those? I have about six months more experience than you all put together.”

“I want to go. We need some things and I don’t want to be afraid.”

“Well I want a cold fucking beer and clean pair of fucking pants, but we don’t always get what we want.”

“Drink your coffee,” Alicia pushes it forward from its spot on the small table as she squints towards the upset blonde.

“What am I supposed to do all day while you all lope around the infested city?”

“You and Nick can work on the fishing. You said you wanted to try.”

“And I have to babysit the smackie?” Elyza laughs, tossing up her hands in defeat. “I–” she points, leaning forward slightly. “You make me–” Her eyes glare and she clenches her jaw. “I swear I–” all the words fight to come out and yet she can’t make any come. “This is–” Nostrils flare and fists tighten. “To hell with you all,” she gives up, storming to the opposite side of the boat. “Don’t cry to me when you get yourself killed.”

With a shake of her head, Alicia finishes her coffee, watching the angry thing at the front of the boat pulling out lines and stalking about, being generally disagreeable with her own existence.

Deep down, half of her wanting to go was to overcome her own fear. The other half. That was the tricky bit. The other half was pure spite. Purely because Elyza dismissed her. Distinctly because she was certain she could not stomach being the weak one, the rescued one. Neither were overwhelmingly good reasons, but they were her reasons.

“And another thing,” Elyza stomps down the steps as Alicia finishes tidying up and getting dressed. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. That would be ridiculous. But this is insane.”

“You’re not?” Alicia ventures, quirking an eyebrow as she laces her shoe.

“No. That’s stupid. I would never want to be that asshole.”

“Because ‘no, no, you can’t,’ sounds an awful lot like you telling me what to do.”

“Yeah, well that’s because I know things that you don’t,” Elyza challenges, her temper coming back despite her desire to keep it in check. “I want to have a discussion.”

“This is the world,” Alicia stands. “Can’t stay locked up here forever.”

“I don’t think you should go.”

“And I hear your vehement concern. I am disregarding it this time. Good talk,” she nods happily and kisses Elyza’s cheek and pats her chest before moving back out to the deck. “I’ll be fine. Have a good day.”

She nearly made it across the deck before she felt a tug on her arm. Yanked and turned around, her smile floundered until she saw the worry etched on Elyza’s face, unable to work itself out.

“You about ready, honey?” Her mother called, covering her eyes from across the way.

“Just,” Elyza holds up her hand for a moment. She squares her shoulders and looks at Alicia’s face, her eyes moving all over quickly. “Be safe and smart out there, alright?” It isn’t a question, though she frames it as such. Her jaw is tight and she’s puffed up to fight the fear that gnaws at her lungs. “Smart. You know what to do. Push to the side, straight in, yank out. Forearm to deflect,” she holds up Alicia’s arm, showing her once more.

“I know. You’ve shown me.”

“Don’t go being a hero,” Elyza whispers, growing antsy as she feels the eyes of the family upon her on the other boat. She leans closer, unable to stand still. “I know you’re going to be fine. I just don’t like it.”

“I’ll be alright.”

“I’m mad.”

“Yeah.”

“But still,” she looks to the boat once more before Alicia grabs her chin and pulls her back. “Get back safe, princess.”

“Someone might think you care about me,” Alicia smiles slightly.

“God, you make me so mad,” she growls.

Before she can think about it too much longer, Elyza feels lips, feels her jaw held tightly and feels herself disappear into it. The knot, the rileing of tension between her shoulder blades unscrews itself for a moment.

“See you soon.”

As much as she doesn’t want to, Elyza watched the little raft motor toward the shore. Hands on hips, she watches, her stomach sinking with every passing second.

“You and me, huh?” Nick finally peeps up, earning a scowl before Elyza stalks towards the other raft.

* * *

There was the prickling of a burn on her shoulders, but still, Elyza sourly sat in the boat and waited for her rod to bend with the nibble of a fish. The breeze whipped through, gusting occasionally, tossing her hair all over. She sat with her back to the boats, just far enough away that she felt as if she left, but still within sight. Their little dingy bobbed eagerly through the surf.

“Maybe with a net,” Nick wagers, tucked deep under an improvised tent made from his shirt at the front of the raft.

“Maybe,” she nods, reeling slightly.

The cooler between them has a few, but nothing to write home about, and certainly not enough of a meal for everyone. Still, Elyza sits, staring at the same ocean, waiting.

For as long as she could, she avoids talking to the kid she’s in charge of who is her age. She grunts and growls and nods and gives quick answers, though he doesn’t seem to take notice of her penchant for quiet. His voice does break up the monotony of worry in her head though, and so she never asks him to officially be quiet.

“How’d you survive out there?”

“You’re supposed to be quiet when you fish,” she mutters. “I think.”

“I’m just curious. I mean, we had to all do some things to get out here, to make it. The military. The gangs. You’ve lasted a while on your own.”

“I reckon you know a few things about getting by on the street.”

“Not with those things.”

“All monsters are the same.”

Once more, Elyza reels in her hook, checking it and tossing it back in one motion she remembered seeing on piers as a child. She wasn’t sure how people did it to relax, because if anything, it made her mad, it infuriated her that she was essentially sitting right on top of thousands of meals and she had to wait for them to come to her.

“They made you babysit me, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Things are getting clearer, for me. Think they’re getting clearer for Alicia, too.”

“That’s great, mate,” she sighs, disinterested completely.

“I killed someone.”

“Me too. Congrats.”

“What do you do with all the things you’ve done and seen?”

“Bury it deep down and use it to fuel me with hatred.”

“Isn’t that exhausting?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re only babysitting me for my sister.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have enough room to love and hate?” 

“I’m a complex individual, mate.” 

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain,” he nodded. “They told me that once. I think it was in Bakersfield or Tucson. It doesn’t matter.”

The line tugged slightly and Elyza sat up, careful to pull gently. She waited but didn’t feel anything else. It was a sick game that made her angry, and for the life of her she swore she’d never fish again. She’d starve or start shooting indiscriminately into the water and hope that worked before she sat on a raft and hoped on tiny thread would pluck a fish from oblivion and deliver it to her.

“You think they’re back yet?”

“Probably.”

“You know what I like about you? You’re the strong, silent type.” He earns nothing other than further hunched shoulders. “There’s an entire book about man’s battle with the sea. We can call it a day.”

“There are a couple books about it,” she huffs. “But I can’t.”

“You can. It’s easy,” he sat up and grabbed his rod. “You just reel this thing in, and then we’ll turn the motor on and head back to our boats. See what they brought. Real easy.”

“I have to wait until they get back.”

“How are we supposed to know that?”

“I don’t know.”

“My sister is fond of you.” 

“Yeah, I’d imagine.” 

“You saved her life.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you think there’s a happy ending here?” 

“As happy as one can imagine with humans eating each other.”

“Maybe.” 

She watched him grow quiet, saw him start to think. She was relieved for the quiet, though the ocean made her ears bleed. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than his incessant chatter.

She set her jaw and peered out toward the horizon. Her line pulls again and she waits. She teases it again before the battle begins, jarring their dingy and making her nearly fall from her seat.

The struggle was a lot more difficult than she expected, and by the time she pulled up the fish, by far the largest of the day, she still felt oddly ripped off. As she tugged and pulled, wrestling the reel, she was certain it was fifty pounds and ready to feed everyone generously. By the time she held it up, it was half that.

“Alright,” she grinned, holding it up, sizing it appreciatively in her hands. “Now we can go back.”

Though Nick was still apprehensive, though he had not learned a lot about her, though she was quiet and dismissive and altogether entirely furrowed, in the little moment she stared at the fish and finally back at him before tossing it in the cooler with the rest, he could almost see what his sister sees.

* * *

Thankfully, as they tied up the raft and prepared to disembark, the fishermen heard the telltale signs of life. As the sun took its time setting, and the sky was deep purple and pink behind them, they tossed up their haul and were met with a chorus of relief, with a chorus of exuberant welcomes, with a harmony of surprise that both survived being in a boat so long together.

“You’re burnt to a crisp,” Alicia worries as she makes her way to the blonde lugging half of the cooler.

“You seem no worse for wear,” Elyza grins, setting it down. She grabs the girl’s face and appraises, looking for signs of damage. “It went alright?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” The blonde frowns and waits. All she gets is arms around her neck and a nose on her nose, with happy eyes and a grin that won’t face. “It seriously was easy. Not a problem.”

“Of course not. I trained you myself,” Elyza assents, smiling as her hands move to hips and she feels herself hugged.

She knows the family is watching. She knows they’re not even pretending not to, and it kills her, but Alicia feels good in her arms. Though still angry, still worried, she feels much of it slip off of her muscles and become nothing but a puddle on the floor with nothing but relief filling her sinews.

“Did you guys get everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to see the fish we caught?”

“More than anything.”

It took some untangling, and with a slight blush when she met the eyes of the curious crowd, but Elyza swallowed and helped Nick hold up some of their catch. Alicia’s family flocked, surprised and encouraging the addict as he proudly paraded his few fish. Alicia’s mother nodded slightly to Elyza in thanks.

“We’ll cook these up. Let me show you how to trim them,” Daniel offered, holding Nick’s shoulder. “We’ll eat like kings tonight.”

“Tell me how it went,” Elyza asks, nervously. She follows Alicia as she moves to the side of their boat, allowing the family to celebrate with Nick on his growth and the addition of fresh meat to their diet.

“I brought you a present,” Alicia ignores her.

“I want to know what happened.”

With a heavy tug, Alicia grabs a rope tied to the railing. She pulls, struggles with it, and reaches over as the rope drips on the deck. For a moment, she simply stands there, holding her surprise with a smile on her face.

“I think you’re underage,” Elyza grins, staring at the bottles of beer tied to the end of the rope.

“No reason you can’t have a cold beer on a nice night like this. End of the world or not. I think it’s the least I can do–”

Her words aren’t even out before Elyza cups her cheeks and kisses her smile. No one else is watching, no one else is around. All they have is this moment with dripping bottles of beer smoothed between their bellies.

“What about pants?” Elyza breathes, eyes still closed.

“I will take no part it keeping you clothed.”

“Ah yeah, that so, gorgeous?”

“I’m a flawed person. Take it or leave it.”

“What did I get myself into?”

With no answer at all, Alicia kisses her, hoping to make her learn the answer to the question herself.


	5. Chapter 5

It is a difficult life to adjust to, for someone who is wild, to be suddenly stuck, listless and incapable of running free. That and the feeling of never quite being still. That and the way someone’s hand feels on her chest when she feels anchored in the best kind of ways. 

“You’re awake early again,” Alicia whispers, running her fingertips along Elyza’s forehead, down the bridge of her nose, over her lips, skating down the ridge of her chin. She is quiet, her voice barely cracking in the dawn. “Haven’t I tired you out yet?” 

“Fat chance of that,” the blonde smiles softly as she closes her eyes again. She lets fingertips ghost along and compose her, outline her features, create her once again for the day. 

In the moment before the dawn, right before the sun pushes itself over the horizon and makes the world violent and alive, Alicia takes a picture with her fingertips and palms, constructing this girl in her bed. What is more of a miracle is that she is allowed. Elyza doesn’t object, doesn’t say a thing, but simply allows it to happen. 

When she lays her palm flat on Elyza’s cheek, she turns her head and blue eyes glow in the grey of the morning outside in the ocean. 

“You need better sleeping habits,” she chides, tracing the heavy bags beneath eyes. Even when she had glimpses of her life before all of the world ending, Elyza couldn’t recall a moment that was better than the feeling of Alicia’s deft hand soothing away her worries. 

“Are you hitting on me?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“You toss and turn all night. You’re last asleep and first up. Let me help,” Alicia murmurs. 

Once more, Elyza closes her eyes, succumbs to the weight of gentle hands and the feeling of being adored, one that is entirely foreign, and not thoroughly unenjoyable. All Alicia sees is her smile, a new one, one she might confuse with peace. 

“You help.” 

“Sure.” 

“You do.” 

Still not extensively believing it to be true, Alicia just shakes her head and sighs. But Elyza is serious, is honest, maybe only with her and in short bursts, but still, to the very bone, honest. She slips down, and settles between her legs, wrapping her arms around her stomach and resting her cheek on the fabric of her shirt. She hugs her there, moving her cheek only to kiss her softly before settling in. Alicia freezes, afraid to disrupt or scare the wild creature choosing her in her bed. She holds her arms up until Elyza settles, and then she rests them on the blonde hair, oddly content with this reaction, oddly understanding what it meant, the intimacy of it. 

“Why can’t you be this sweet out there?” she ponders aloud, letting her hands drag along Elyza’s temple. 

“I’m always sweet.” 

“You’re gruff when my family’s around.” 

“I’m… not,” she defends herself weakly. 

“You can’t even get their names right.” 

“I know your name. That’s all I need.” 

“They want to get to know you. To keep you, just like I want to keep you,” Alicia sighs. “You have to let them try, at least.” 

“The people who strung me up? Who lost you?” 

“I thought you were over this.” 

“I am.” 

“Then what?” 

“I don’t trust them,” she shrugs. 

“You trust me, don’t you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Why not them?” 

“I have the capacity to worry about two people, tops,” Elyza explained, tilting herself so her chin rested below Alicia’s chest. “You and me. That’s just the way it is. I can’t worry about them all. It’s too much. I wouldn’t be effective.”

“We’re a packaged deal.” 

“Yeah. But I’m thinking realistically. Your people aren’t my people. You’re my people.” 

The sun comes out, rises above the straight edge of the world for another day, slithers in through the window painting the tiny bedroom in the boat this golden kind of new, that baths the inhabitants in the imminent heat of the dat. 

Alicia thinks about the words, creating nasty scenarios in her head in which she has to choose, in which the blatant honesty of Elyza’s words are very real, and all too honest. 

“That’s very pragmatic of you.”

“Pragmatic is my middle name.” 

“When I first met you, you told me you were going to save the world,” Alicia reminds her, ignoring her joke. She earns a nod. “Did you ever think that maybe saving the world isn’t about killing as many of the monsters as you can, but possibly it’s saving as many of those who are alive?” 

Quiet, the boat rocks its steady rhythm with the tide. There is the beginnings of movement from the other boat next door. Eliza furrows and buries herself deeper into the spot between ribs. 

“You’ve really fucked it all up, you know?” she complains, half-hearted and sleepy, earning a chuckle from her current pillow. 

“I love you,” she explains, happy and alive. “I only want you to be happy, too.” 

“You… yeah?” the blonde lifts her head, curious and confused. 

“Yeah,” Alicia nods, shaking her head. “For the life of me, I have no idea what I’m getting into because of it, but there it is.” 

“You… do?” 

“You’re loveable when you want to be.” 

Slowly, Elyza feels the smile spread to her cheeks, feels the warmth spread to her chest as she drags her body up to meet Alicia’s lips. She takes her time on the journey, kissing neck, earning giggles as she contemplates the news. Mostly, she just wants to keep her own mouth busy so nothing stupid comes out if given the chance. Mostly, she just wanted to hide in the sheets and be madly in love because never would she have seen this coming. 

“Are you sure?” Elyza ventures after pulling away from a searing kind of kiss that left her oddly dazed and incapable of filtering. While Alicia found her brain wiped clean, Elyza’s moved in double time.

A thumb ran along her lips, slid up and ran along the prominence of her cheek while Alicia’s eyes took her in again. She was kissed a second later, though it is different than the first, than the one she started. Alicia lets her lips linger, fills her chest with air and wastes it all on that singular instant. 

“I have never been more sure of anything in my life.” 

She smooths the furrow of mountains growing on Elyza’s brow, kisses the side of her mouth and pulls her closer, letting her be a blanket that sighs and finally relaxes against her chest. 

“Well, now you’ve really fucked it all,” the blonde laments weakly. Alicia rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “You’re stuck with me now, princess.” 

There’s hands on her shoulders and hands in her hair, pulling her closer. There’s the weight of her hips against Alicia’s. There’s the breeze as it mimics fingertips and brushes along her bare shoulders. There’s the smell of salt and sun and Alicia, stained on skin as her nose moves down neck. In the vastness of time and space, not one person could understand the smell of Alicia’s neck, nor could they appreciate the taste of her skin when she smiled and begged.

The stomping of boots crossing onto their boat signals that morning is finally there and they are no longer in their private bubble, as much as both valiantly fight against it. 

“We have work to do,” Daniel calls gruffly from atop the steps, knocking on the door, though not daring to venture down into the living quarters. 

“I miss hitting snooze on my alarm clock,” Elyza complains, burrowing into neck and kissing collarbone. Alicia spreads her hands, wide and firm against the expanse of her back. 

“You guys are awful busy.”

“If I’m going to save the world, we need a lot of plans.” 

“I’m still not sure if you’re serious or not about that, but I do like hearing it,” Alicia confessed. 

“Alicia, I made breakfast, honey,” her mother’s voice filters in with the breeze, earning a moan of complaint only audible to the two still in bed. 

Elyza is the first to move, slowly dragging herself from the sheets and the arms and the body and the girl in her bed that said she loves her. She pulls on her pants and refuses to meet Alicia’s eyes as she props herself up, watching the show, enjoying the way a relatively clean tank top covers the toned stomach and scars and ink mixed there that were her’s and her’s alone to play with whenever she wanted. 

“I, uh,” Elyza pauses as she shoves her toothbrush in her mouth and begins to scrub, her words becoming jumbled. She spits and starts brushing again, struggling with the words that take up too much space between her teeth and in her gums. She pushes her hair around on her head, a messy mop that has grown lighter in the sun.

Alicia refuses to leave the bed, her own protest going unnoticed as she watches her get ready. Watching Elyza is one of her favourite past times on the boat. The way her forearms move when she cleans weapons. The look she gets when she allows herself to enjoy talking with Nick. With a final rinse, Elyza grows leery and nervous as she slips on shoes. 

“It’s laundry day. Did you give me everything?” Alicia asks, sitting up completely and pushing her hair to the side. Elyza mumbles a response before moving toward the stairs. “Hmm?” 

“I love you, too,” she murmurs, quickly and barely audible, with only a short glance at Alicia’s eyes before darting up the steps in almost a single bound.

She disappears above deck before Alicia can comprehend it, but when she does, she can’t stop smiling, and in that state, falls back into the pillows and laughs to herself.

* * *

The planning is tense, is insane, is optimistic and stupid and something that could change the entire world. Strand and Daniel heed Elyza’s words, offer their own, and often the debates rage for hours over the simplest thing so that ever inch of progress feels as if it creates miles more to discuss. But it’s something. it is the future. It’s survival. 

Maps stretched out, notebooks filled, the wall in the office of the captains deck is filled with lists. Elyza surveys it as the sun begins to sink and the water grows dark while the sky catches fire, encompassing the entire spectrum of fire in its wake. 

Three weeks they work on their project, their ideas, their masterpiece, doing recon work up and down the coast in the dinghies, gather strictly information. 

Three weeks, Elyza only hears Alicia tell her she loves her one more time, and she’s grateful for it, because hearing it made her so happy she couldn’t function, and that was alarming. She wanted to say it back, but she finds herself choking on the words until she knows Alicia is almost asleep. And as she rolls over and wraps her arms around the tired girl in her bed, she whispers them, like a prayer, and kisses her shoulder and sleeps better than she’s ever slept before in the history of time. 

Three weeks, and it’s finally time to go to shore and start, to tell the rest of the group what they’ve come up with, to try. 

“Do you think it will work?” Elyza ventures as Daniel stares at the shoreline from their perch. She twirls a blade around her fingers before stabbing it into a section of a map that is the middle of the ocean. 

“I think it makes us a target.” 

“Being alive makes us one of those,” she murmurs, turning back to the table and debating to herself. Hands bracing on the edge, she surveys the tiny x’s on valuable spots that they must hit just to get started. 

“We start in the morning,” Daniel decides. “No more planning. A time for action.” 

The noises from the family start downstairs on the deck as they prepare to eat dinner. Still unsure of her place in the grand scheme of the group, Elyza is hesitant to join, preferring to be alone, to not be bothered, missing the quiet sanctity of her little cabin on the hill. 

“Are you ready for it?”

“Always. Come on. It’s time to eat.” 

“I’ll be down in a bit,” she lies. He knows it, too, but ignores it as he leaves. 

Instead, she focuses, runs her finger along routes and roads, trying to remember what she could from her experiences. The only thing she is certain of is that the landscape is constantly changing and shifting with the new kind of world they live in now. It makes it difficult, and it scares the hell out of her if she’s being honest. But she doesn’t, she wouldn’t. 

“I brought you something,” Alicia announces her entrance on the top deck. The brooding blonde doesn’t turn around, nor does she look at the plate slid on the corner of the table. “You have to eat.” 

“Thanks,” Elyza smiles but still stares intently at the city laid out before her. Even when hands slip around her waist, and even when a chin digs into her shoulder. 

For a while, Alicia scans everything, trying to discern what the plan that they’ve been so secretive about sharing. Difficult to make out, she simply enjoys more of the feeling of skin against her lip and the way muscles relax under her touch. 

“Tell me the plan,” she mumbles, breathing in the smell of sun on skin. 

“You’ll stay here this time,” Elyza turns her head. 

“Fat chance.” 

“I don’t even know why I try.” 

“Tell me.” 

“We’re going to build a farm.” 

“At the cabin?” Alicia asks, moving around Elyza, slipping between her and the table so that Elyza is her jacket now, over her shoulders. Both stare at the map, both grin and enjoy the proximity.

“No,” the blonde grins. “See this?” she takes Alicia’s hand and drags it to a circle on the map, her chin on shoulder blade. “It’s a shipyard up the coast. Away from residential sections. It should be pretty easy to use as a landing point.” 

“The highway is right there, too.” 

“Exactly, gorgeous.” She can’t see it, but Alicia blushes and leans her back against her chest. Pressed between her Aussie and the table, Alicia could listen to her words touch her neck for ages. “But more importantly, they have the company that focused on making jack-up rigs for the Pacific.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Those floating platforms that can elevate themselves above the water, if need be. Think stationary platform out in the ocean.” 

“Do you know anything about that?” 

“I worked on some when I was a teenager. Not enough, but I mean, we can wing it. We’ll have to. We were going to use barges, but what if the weather is terrible and we lose them? This anchors itself, and we can go a little bit farther offshore.” 

“Barges?” 

“A floating farm,” Elyza grins, running Alicia’s finger down the coast. “Anchor it out at sea, build planters, some water collection tubs. An entire greenhouse, if we really want it.” 

“It’s ambitious.” 

“We’re not safe on land. That’s plain. But maybe there’s something to staying out here. The runs we make are getting less and less productive. We need to sustain.” 

“Does that mean we’ll have cows and stuff, too?” 

“Maybe one day.” 

“Look at you, planning for the future like you’re sticking around,” Alicia smiles, running her hand up Elyza’s neck and into her hair. 

“I think I better. Who knows what kind of mess you’ll get into if I don’t.” 

She is rewarded with a kiss on her neck, hot and open. With hips pushing her against the table. She rewards her girl with a tilt of her head, exposing more neck to be kissed. 

“I’d like some chickens. Can we start there?” Alicia closes her eyes and lets her head slump backward as a hand slides up her ribs. 

“So high maintenance,” Elyza hums, distracted from planning by the girl who rubbed her body against her while she tried to focus. “First a boat, now chickens.” 

“Eat your dinner,” she weakly chides, feeling the situation quickly getting out of hand. She feels Elyza’s hand flat against her stomach before it moves higher, cupping her through the shirt. Her resolve disappears. 

“I’m hungry for something else,” the blonde growls. 

“You’re going to build me a farm, you have to keep up your strength,” Alicia moans, deep and needy. 

All she can do is feel Elyza push against her harder as she bends down over the table. She felt kisses on her spine and hands grab her hips as she pressed her cheek flat against the map and arched against it. 

“Alicia! Honey?” her mother calls from below. “Elyza. We need to go over the plan for tomorrow.” 

The blonde growls, her forehead flopping down on Alicia’s back, earning a chuckle. 

“We should go.” 

“I’ll be quick.” 

“Not a selling point,” Alicia feels the weight disappear from her back. “We’ll go to bed early tonight. Eat your dinner.” 

“Save her,” Elyza taunts her self with a mumble. “It’ll be easy. It’ll be great. Load of shit.” Alicia smiles and kisses her cheek.

* * *

“First, we set this, and then we work on the dirt,” Elyza explains, crowbarring open the door to the excavator. “Simple.” 

“Simple, except that you forgot the fact that we’re dealing with huge pieces of equipment none of us know hot to fully operate,” Alicia teased, taking a bite of the apple they’d found in the orchard on the way in to the construction site. 

“Semantics,” she rolled her eyes, opening it with a wiggle of her eyebrows. “Can you imagine it though? An entire farm for us.” 

“You’re seriously bordering completely on optimistic. Did you hit your head?” 

From the other side of the yard, the rest of the group continued loading what they’d need on this first trip. It’d been expertly prepared and flawlessly executed, and even having Alicia around only made her slightly nervous. 

“You’ve ruined me.” 

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Alicia grins, squinting into the sun. 

A shot rings out, ricocheting off of the metal of a machine behind Alicia. Immediately, Elyza hops to the ground and pulls her to the other side of the heavy machine. Huffing and trying to catch her breath, she presses Alicia there, hand over her mouth, stifling a scream and earning frantic eyes. She breathes deep until Alicia mimics her and nods, slowly pulling her hand away as another shot rings out and Alicia jumps. 

Slowly, Elyza peaks out and peers into the tree line across the field, finally spotting guns and people. Not many, four that she can make out, but still, they fire once more. She looks over her shoulder and sees the rest of the group hunkered down in relative safety and cover. 

“We need to talk to one of yours,” a voice calls out, long and lazy across the yard, approaching tentatively. “A bit of business.” 

“You stay here, okay?” she nods, leaning close. “I don’t care what happens, you stay here until I come get you.” 

“I can-”

“Stay here,” Elyza orders in a way that makes her think that there is no room for debate. 

From the other side of the yard, Travis holds up his hands and hollers for the group to stop, earning a reply ordering them to come out with their weapons tossed on the ground. He looks over at Elyza and earns a nod before looking at Daniel who does the same. 

“No need for that,” Travis explains as they approach. 

“You’re the ones that started this!” a man called back, guns raised as they approached. Frantic and agitated, his voice carried across path. “Let’s go. Hand her over.”

“We didn’t do anything,” Travis explains. “We just got here.”

“You killed our guy.” 

“Listen, I don’t know what you think, but we really just got to this area.” 

“Where are the rest?” he asks as they meet in the middle, still keeping a distance. “We counted ten.” 

“Alright, mate. We just came for some supplies and we’ll be going,” Elyza offered. “Us three were the only ones with weapons. Leave the rest alone.” 

Tall and slender, the man who spoke looked around anxiously between the faces of the three with their hands up still. His shirt was torn at the collar, his hair much too long and getting in his eyes. 

His counterparts didn’t look much better. They kept their fingers on the triggers and held their breath. Elyza sized them up, did what she did best. 

All eyes stayed on Elyza.

“Where are you from?” 

“We’re off the coast,” Daniel supplied. “Just here for some equipment.”

“What do you know about the people downtown?” 

“Nothing.” 

“I know you,” he sucked his teeth and peered at the blonde. “You’re the one lighting the fires. One of them, for down there.” 

“Then you also know I’m the one you don’t want to point a gun at,” she reminds him as he takes a moment before nodding. With a tilt of his head the others lower theirs, though not completely. “We don’t want any trouble. Just trying to find a little safety.” 

“You were the one that killed Brandon,” the leader mused, taking a few steps towards the blonde. He stopped in front of her and dug in his shirt pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?” 

“I quit. Those things’ll kill you,” she dead-pans, earning a chuckle and a shake of his head as he leans slightly to light it. “I didn’t catch his name. If he’s the on you’re talking about. Dirty prick who spit, had it run down his chin.” 

“He had it coming,” the leader agreed, shrugging. “I do not miss him at all.” 

“You didn’t have to shoot at us.” 

“Things are a little edgy in these parts the past few weeks. We’re past the point of asking questions first.” 

“Just let us finish up, and then we’ll be out of your hair–”

“Elyza!” Alicia yelped as she was yanked out from behind the dozer. 

“We don’t want any trouble,” Travis insisted. 

“See, I don’t care that you killed Brandon. He was a creep. But his brother, David, he holds grudges, and I can’t really blame him. We don’t have a problem with you. Feel free to finish up. We’ll be taking whatever supplies you have, and you can go on your way. Sound fair?” 

“Let her go,” Elyza snaps her head towards the burly man with the beard, his arm wrapped tightly around Alicia’s neck, holding her like a shield. 

“You killed my brother. Then you let him turn,” he growled, yanking Alicia around. 

“Listen, we don’t have to do this,” Travis tried, still holding his hand up, moving between the groups. They raised their guns once more. 

“It’s between them,” the leader sighed, nudging his pistol so that Travis backed away. “We just want your food and water. Start handing it over,” he waves the weapon slightly, disinterestedly. 

“Come on, mate,” Elyza shook her head. “Let her go. Your brother shouldn’t have tried to shove his hand down my pants. He had it coming.” 

“I saw you, with her. You love her,” he nods, opening a knife with his free arm. “Good.” 

Before he can move, Elyza lounges, pushing her shoulder into Alicia’s, knocking them all off balance. She feels the blade in her shoulder. Tossed to the side, Alicia groans and tries to catch her breath, unaware of the tussle happening on the ground beside her. 

Elyza takes a few punches, a kick to the ribs before kicking his knee at the wrong angle, bringing the big man to his knees once more. When Travis moves forward, he’s hit, blindsided with the butt of a pistol. Nick gets a rifle to the back before they stop trying to intervene. 

“You killed him!” the man yells, charging her, hand wrapping around her throat. She feels her eyes bulge with the pressure before unlocking his elbow. 

“He was a piece of shit,” she informed him, dodging a backhand. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he explains, tossing her across the way. “And then I’m going to kill your little girlfriend. Slow,” he promises, punches enunciating his words. 

“Mate, you don’t even know the beatings I’ve taken for her already,” Elyza grins before spitting blood down. 

Again, slower though this time from trying to catch her breath, Elyza tackles him. Her fists wail on his face until he’s just a pulp. Blood covers her clothes, half hers, half his. As she finishes, she brings a rock down on his head, once, twice, a few more for good measure until she screams out and lets it drop, stained red just like her face. 

“Well, alright. Could have gone either way,” the leader shrugs, putting his gun back in his belt. “You all can get to leaving. We’ll call it a wash. No harm no-”

His wards are cut off only by the sound of the gun that makes everyone jump. Elyza stands, arm lowering slowly after pulling the trigger. 

“This is done,” she explains, looking at the others in his party. “We don’t want any trouble from you ever again. Or I swear to God, I’ll kill each and everyone one of you with my bare hands.” 

None of them move for a moment, but once the first one nods and drops their weapon, the other three follow. 

“Get,” she spits blood on the ground and fully drops the gun as they scurry away with her permission. 

The rest of the group is quiet, watches them leave and staring at the dead bodies on the gravel. Elyza swallows and tastes dirt and blood once more. 

“Are you alright?” Alicia approaches, her shoulder surely dislocated. “I could have taken him. I was going to–”

“I’m the one who kills,” Elyza stands close, towering and angry, wrath and war in her snarling teeth, her hand pointed at the brunette who, for her own credit, does not shy away or flinch too much from the fury. “I bear it so you don’t have to.”

“You don’t-”

“This is who I am,” she seethes, nostrils flaring, wild and feral and terrifying. Blood smeared her cheek, dripped down her chin. “I’ve made my peace with it. Can you?” 

“I don’t-”

“You don’t come out here anymore.” 

“This is who we are, now,” Alicia argues. “All of us.”

“This is who I am.” 

“No,” Alicia shakes her head. “I know who you are.” She waits for Elyza to stop huffing, to calm down, to catch her breath. 

Eyes wild and terrifying, Elyza grits her teeth and pleads for something she doesn’t know how to get or what to call it. Tentative and still afraid, Alicia places her hand on Elyza’s chest, earning a flinch, though she does not pull away.

“Alicia, we have to–”

“Give me a minute,” she barks, clutching at the blonde. 

“We need to move–”

“Hey,” Alicia turned back to Elyza and places her hands on her neck, on her cheeks. “I know who you are.” Like a lost animal, like someone who finally comes back to life, she looks at the body, at her knuckles at Alicia, completely lost and confused and angry, so fucking angry. 

The blonde swallows and shakes her head, looking away guilty and ashamed. She looks down as a cloth rubs against her cheek.

“We have to go,” she sighs, swallowing any thought other than survival. 

“It’s okay,” Alicia promises. “I love you.” 

As if it were a slap, Elyza grits her teeth a pulls away before shouldering a rifle and walking back towards the cars.

* * *

“She just… snapped,” Travis murmured, rubbing his hands together as he winced. 

“To protect Alicia,” Daniel reminded them.

“It’s her fault they were even following us,” Ofelia shook her head, opening the kit to get the bandages to fix the two wounded men. 

“She can’t stay,” Kim paces. “She’s a danger to us-”

“She’s the only one who can survive this,” Daniel shakes his head. 

“I thought you vetted her,” Strand questions, leaning against the window on the back porch of the boat. 

“I did.” 

“Her past just shot at us.” 

“And look what she did!” her father defends himself. “She will fight like an animal to survive. And if you don’t have that mentality, then you’re as good as dead.”

“We can’t have murderers–”

“She’s not,” Alicia stops, frozen at the words coming from the congregation. Her hands are full of supplies to fix up the once-again bleeding blonde in her bed. “She’s not a killer.” 

“She bashed a man’s skull in with a rock.” 

“In self-defence.” 

“Because she already killed someone else,” her mother argues. 

“In self-defence.” 

“Or so we’re told.” 

“Fuck you all,” Alicia shakes her head, her brother looking away guiltily. 

“Alicia,” Travis stands, pushing his palm against the cut on his forehead. “We have to be practical here. We can’t have someone who is…” 

“Seriously,” she cuts him off. “Go fuck yourselves.” 

“She has to go, honey,” her mother tries. 

“We’ll be gone in the morning.”

* * *

She heard every word as she sat in the cabin, nursing her own wounds. As proud as she is of the way Alicia swears, when she catches the glimpse of her own fists, she is suddenly confronted with the notion that the person she was hasn’t disappeared, but merely slumbered and waited. 

The thing that kept her alive, the monster, the drive, the animal that prowled through her blood simply hibernated and lulled her into a false sense of security, tricking her into thinking these hands, these bloody, torn apart, murderous, killing tools, could hold something precious and good and soft and alive. 

“Hey,” Alicia betrays nothing as she comes back down the steps. “I grabbed what I could. You’re diminishing our supplies with your penchant for getting hurt.” 

“How’s your shoulder?” 

“Fine. Sore, but okay.” 

“I’m sorry,” the blonde’s head dropped between her shoulders, hanging low as she leaned her forearms on her knees. “I thought that wasn’t who I was, but–”

“That’s exactly who you are,” Alicia stopped her kneeling down before her. “That is exactly who you are. Brave and strong, smart, fast, protective, loyal. I think that’s all your DNA is encoded with.” 

“I couldn’t stop.” 

“You did.” 

“I chose. There was a moment, when I could have stopped. He could have lived,” she confesses. Hands move along her cheek as she closes her eyes. “I didn’t. I chose to take him out forever.” 

“He was a threat.” 

“I’m tired,” Elyza confesses. She means it, probably more than she’s ever meant anything before, because the exhaustion, the pure, plain tired, as gnawed on her muscles and wires until she was short-circuiting altogether. “I’m so tired, princess,” she whispers, leaning forward until her forehead is on Alicia’s shoulder. 

“I know,” Alicia promises, clutching, holding, oblivious to the bruises and pain Elyza experienced. “I know you are. I’m here.” 

With a deep breath, Elyza swallows and runs her hand over her cheeks, steadying herself.

* * *

To her credit, Alicia never brings it up, refuses to acknowledge it, instead opting to pretend none of it ever happened. If she slept, if she truly slept and stayed in ed, than tomorrow would never come and the conversations wouldn’t start. 

Elyza waits in the dark for the words, though they never come. She kisses Alicia’s forehead and plays with the ends of her hair in her bandaged hand, running it along her lips and remember flower petals and blades of grass. 

In the night, when the water is the loudest noise and the lapping gently rocks the rest to sleep, she waits until she hears Alicia’s breathing even. She allows herself one more minute before kissing her forehead. 

“I love you,” she whispers before slipping from the bed. 

Quietly, she pulls on her pants, shoves a few things in a bag and looks once more at the girl in the bed. She plucks the sketch from the wall she’d done of Alicia one evening, on an evening like any other evening, before she could say that she was in love with her. She carefully folds it and places it in the pocket of the bag. 

“Take care of yourself, princess.” 

By the time she makes it to edge of the boat and tosses out the life raft, the familiar glow of the red end of a cigarette approaches, rifle tucked sternly against his shoulder. 

“You’ll take care of her, yeah?” Elyza asks, tossing her bag inside. 

“Stay,” he offers. 

“She deserves to live, not just survive,” she shakes her head. “Promise me. On your daughter, don’t let her come after me.” 

“I don’t know if–”

“Please.” It is a foreign word, and both know it. He simply nods solemnly. 

“Good luck out there,” he puffs on his cigarette as she pushes away from the boats and back towards the shore. She’s too far already to hear it, lost among the waves and the breeze, but still, he means it.


	6. Chapter 6

She knew it. 

The second she woke, before she even saw the daylight, there was a feeling, just a passing, silly thought that she knew would be true the moment she opened her eyes. And so she didn’t. 

For the first few minutes of the morning, she simply listened to the rumble of the water, to the familiar harmony of ropes hitting poles, to the gentle yawnings and stirrings of the boat next door, and she ran her hand along the empty spot in the bed, curling into herself, willing it to be untrue, despite knowing full well exactly what to expect.

Half-surprise and half-eventuality, Alicia opened her eyes and felt the way her heart ached, squeezed, as if her entire chest was compressing itself, imploding like she remembered stars are oft to do. All at once, she understood, and the sadness mingled with anger, so that she felt both individually, simultaneously, and it exhausted her to her bones. So she did not move, for a long time, while her brain tried to figure out the next steps. 

The rage came with the idea that she didn’t have to leave. Elyza could have stayed, and Alicia was prepared to fight for her. The rage came with letting this girl take her heart away. It came with the idea that she could be dead, that she could never see her again, that when the universe throws together two people who are meant to defy laws of man and nature and time and space, that one does not simply reject it. The anger resided in the place from which her resignation grew. It was easier to live with than the ache, the loss. 

It takes three weeks before she tries to get herself on shore. Every night, it kills her, to not be able to go, but still, she knows she must play it that way, knows that there’s no other way around it. Instead, she spends her spare time staring at the horizon where land resides just beyond, and she looks for pillars of smoke, and thinks each is Elyza. 

Her mother waits, waits for the sadness, but Alicia keeps that for herself and the hours before she wakes. Her brother tries hardest, during the weeks after Elyza leaves, but he knows enough that he cannot fix anything anymore. To the rest, she is nearly unrecognizable. Strong and silent and resolved. 

“You can’t go after her,” Daniel murmurs as they make their way to the shore. “It is bad out there. She left so you could stay safe.” 

The first time anyone dares mention her, and it takes Alicia off guard, suddenly, though she just swallows and takes a deep breath before nodding and peering at their destination. 

“You’re over that,” Ofelia promises, as Alicia forces a smile and nods. “We’re just going to get a few things, and then be back on the farm.” 

“Yeah,” Alicia sighs. She swallows the hurt, and she does what she must to survive. It is a new kind of battle.

As they land, the first thing Alicia does is check her weapon. She tucks her gun into her holster and twists the baseball bat in her hand as she surveys the street. The city is no different than it was, and still, it feels new every time, growing more and more foreign as they become water creatures. 

For just a moment, Alicia contemplates bolting. She stands there and she thinks to run. That word flashes through her head, yet when given the opportunity, when suddenly capable of chasing her down, Alicia doesn’t know which way to start, and the sadness overpowers the anger, and the betrayal overpowers the longing, and she is too stung to move, too angry in a different way to do it. 

Someone like Elyza leaves, they don’t get found unless they want to be, and she knows it. The finality haunts her.

“Hm?” she turns to her name. 

“We’re going to head down towards the nursery,” Travis eyed her warily, though he never says anything. “You, Ofelia, and Nick go to the shop.”

“Yeah, alright,” Alicia adjusts the bag on her shoulder. 

The street is quiet, but Alicia keeps an ear open, vigilant, remembering everything she was taught and shown by the girl who left her. She weaves her way through the streets and feels oddly alone despite the company. 

“Where do you think she went?” Nick ventures. 

“Probably up the coast,” Alicia sighs. “She wouldn’t go to the cabin. That’d be the first place I’d look.” 

“If you were looking.” 

“Right.” 

“Why aren’t you?” 

“Nick,” Ofelia scolds, shaking her head, giving him a look behind his sister’s back that told him not to push. 

“Sometimes,” Alicia grunts, heaving open a door in an alley. “People won’t stay. That’s just how it is. She made a choice. I’ll live with it.” For as long as I can, she adds in her head. If it ate her away anymore, she’d be nothing. 

“Would you have really left with her?” 

“Yeah,” she answers quickly, not even hesitating. 

The shop is the same one they’d been using for weeks, and as they all slip inside, careful to close the door again, the noise of groaning comes from outside. 

“We’ll have to use the back,” Ofelia offers. 

“Shh,” Alicia holds up her hand. 

Despite the noise in the street, the collection of a dozen walkers who’d been following them slowly, something is different in their little store. She pulls up her bat and holds it at the ready as she slips down an aisle. 

The rustling noise is different, not one she is used to, and so she moves toward the back as quiet as she can, unsure of what they will find. She feels her brother and friend on her back, hears them breathing heavily. 

“Whoa whoa whoa!” a girl holds her hands up as Alicia nudges in the door to the back office with her shoulder. “Whoa! Living. I’m alive. Don’t shoot!” 

“Who the fuck are you?” Alicia wiggles the bat over her shoulder, silently wondering if she is ready to attack. 

Quickly, she sizes up the situation, sees the brace on the girl’s leg, the cans of food, the cage. Her bat drops to her shoulder when she does not see a weapon anywhere. 

“Someone told me to come here if I wanted to live,” she holds up her hands still. “She gave me a chicken and sent me here. I’ve been waiting for three days.” 

“She?” 

“Badass, leather jacket, motorcycle, likes to swear and smoke.” 

“She quit.” 

“Right.” The girl gulped and looked at the three who filled the door, her heart beating out of her chest. “I have… I have a note…” 

“What happened to your leg?” Alicia pointed with her bat. 

“Car accident when everything first started to fall apart. I set it myself. Not too shabby,” she shrugs, handing over a piece of paper. “Can they drop the guns?” she swallows, looking to the two behind the one with the bat. 

“No.” 

_Hey Princess-_   
_Maybe you were right. Saving the world might be helping out those who are left. This one’s good. She can help._   
_I promised you a chicken._   
_PS. I’m still going to kill as many of these as I can._   
_PPS. Take care of yourself._

“What happened to you?” Alicia asks, reading and rereading the paper. 

She doesn’t look up from the note in her hand as she speaks, still trying to discern any messages Elyza may have left in there, hoping to read between lines, suddenly hopeful and overcome by missing her too much. 

“I was making my way down south for the winter. I got stuck in a house a few miles up from here. Next thing I know, gunshots, and the door is open and this girl comes in, asks me all kinds of questions, tells me there are good people who need my help, and drops me off here,” the girl relayed. “Said if the chicken died, she’d kill me.” Alicia smiled and looked at the animal in the cage. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Raven.” 

“Was she…” Alicia swallows and flexes her jaw. “The girl. She was alright?” 

“Alright enough to take out about twenty biters in one fell swoop,” she snorted. “Bit of an asshole though.” 

“What do you know about engines?” 

“Everything,” she grins. 

Alicia looks at her passively again before turning to the cage and peering at the animal inside. She smiles, and against her better judgement, still falls harder for that asshole who doesn’t know how to be loved.

* * *

The sun snarls directly overhead in the mean kind of noon that comes despite the remaining haze from the half-dead city. Elyza drags her forearm across her forehead, the mix of blood and sweat forming a nasty mess on her arm that she wipes on her pant leg.

The remnants of the small group of walkers pile up to her shoulders as she pulls the bandana down from nose before pulling off the thick gloves. The killing them part was always more fun than the clean up, but here she was, again. 

From her back pocket, she pulls out a cigarette, carefully putting it to her lips and lighting it with her old lighter. The smoke puffs into a cloud before drifting away as she snaps it shut and puts it back in her pocket. 

It only takes one long drag before she remembers and tosses the half-smoked thing on the ground, grumpy and sore about it as the pile goes up in smoke. She rolls her eyes and looks at the sky, bothered by her own thoughts. 

Twenty-three more notches to go on with the count, she observes, leaning on the shovel. The parking lot is quiet, not even the birds are back yet.

With a clunk, the shovel gets tossed in the back of the old pick up and Elyza grabs her coat hanging on the tailgate. She has plans for the day, and she has a tight schedule to keep if she is going to save the world. A foolhardy task, she knows, but at this point, foolhardy is all the world has left.

The world has a different meaning to her now though. Her entire world is on a boat in the ocean a few miles off shore. And so her mission, though the same, has shifted in its execution. Already, she sent them a mechanic and a cop and a retired postman who knew how to fish better than walk. It did nothing to assuage her guilt, it did nothing to make her want to not go back. 

She saw her. Once. For a moment. 

Unable to help it any longer, Elyza hung around the dock and saw Alicia. She had to, as much as she knew it was a terrible idea, as much as it hurt, as much as it killed her. 

There isn’t a moment she isn’t actively either thinking of the beautiful girl, or at least actively trying not to think of her. It’s exhausting. 

Just as she pulls her hair from beneath her coat, she spots movement in her peripherals. Down the block, she sees a kid running, crossing the street, and not five seconds later, the herd she’d gathered.

“Nope,” she shakes her head. “Not again. Not my problem.” 

She revs the bike and pulls the bandana back up over her nose. A scream comes from down the block and she continues to shake her head, talking herself out of it, remembering the last time she explicitly rescued someone on this block. 

“Fuck,” she puts it in gear and pulls out. 

In a flash, she passes the kid as he keeps running, hands waving and yelling. She parks a bit up, and grabs her machete as the kid trips and starts scrambling towards her. With little more than a few steps to gather speed, she works her way through the crowd, back and forth, the bodies dropping quickly as she makes her way through them, the swarm trying to corner her. By the time she’s finished, she’s covered in sludgy blood and sweat. The last body falls and she bends over, yanking her knife from the skull and wiping it on her pants. 

Out of breath and trying to hide it, she winces and puts her hands on her hips, sizing up the kid still on the ground. Petrified and still out of breath himself, he just stares back at her. 

“You don’t have any cigarettes, do you?” 

“I’m twelve,” he shakes his head quickly. 

“That’s alright,” she swallows, sheathing her weapons. “I quit anyway.” 

“Are you going to kill me now?” he backed away slightly again. 

“No.” 

“The last guy that helped us tried to kill us.” 

“Yeah, well. Men are the worst.” 

“I’m Ade-”

“Nope,” Elyza shook her head, strolling past him. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. I’m out of he–”

“Leave him alone!” a voice comes from the side, blindsiding her. On her back and out of breath, Elyza sees stars. 

“No! Stop!” The kid interrupts as Elyza struggles against her hands being pinned. “She helped.” 

“What do you want?” the voice snarled near her face and when the blonde could finally open her eyes, she was met with brown eyes near her own. She feels a blade on her cheek.

“To go far away from you.” 

“What do you want from us,” she corrected, not letting go as Elyza struggled to pull her hands away. 

“Nothing.” 

“She saved me, Indra,” the kid interrupted, pulling the woman off of Elyza until she relented and let go, standing and putting her own knife in her pocket. She made no effort to help Elyza up from the ground. 

“We’re leaving. Don’t follow us,” the woman glared, lifting her chin, haughty and stern. 

“Nope,” Elyza shakes her head and mumbles to herself, dusting the gravel from her palms as they take a few steps. The kid looks back over his shoulder. “Nope. Don’t.” She stands and spits and hates the little voice in the back of her head that sounds so damn familiar that she craves it. “Wait!” she calls. “Do you know anything about farming?”

* * *

There’s another boat now, as beds grow scarce. Alicia sits on the deck of hers and stares at the platform now finally in place. Lumber stacked on once side shows their progress towards their goal. She has done enough, and she has worried herself, ached herself away to nothing. 

The dawn is still an hour away, thought the sky doesn’t seem to know it, already preparing for such things as the new start of the day and the rest of the events that go with such things. 

With a resigned nod, she prepares the small boat, ready to head to shore, ready to look for Elyza, realizing that the blonde was not coming back willingly, and that she could not live another day like this again. 

“What are you doing?” a small voice yawns as she tosses her bag from the back to the lower deck. 

“Nothing,” she grunts. 

“Where are you going?” Aden asks. 

“No where.” 

“You’re going to land,” he realizes. 

“You didn’t see anything,” she nods, giving him a small smile. “If anyone asks, I’ll be back this evening.” 

“You’re going to look for her.” 

“It’s complicated,” Alicia sighs. 

“I can’t let you,” he swallows and takes a step forward. “Elyza made me promise…”

“She… what?” 

“I’m not supposed to tell you,” he shakes his head and looks away, slightly guilty as Alicia takes a step closer, towering over him. He’d been her shadow since him and his teacher arrived a few weeks ago, and it suddenly clicked. 

“Spit it out.” 

“I’m supposed to protect you. Elyza saved me, so it’s my job to protect you,” he stood a little straighter. 

Her blood boils in only the way that Elyza is capable of doing. Naturally, she’d assign a child to guilt her to stay. That was dirty and it worked. Alicia puts her hands on her hips and stares at him. 

“Do you ever just…” she shook her head and grit her teeth. “Do you ever just want things to be easy?” All she got was confused green eyes watching her. “Do you think she’ll come back?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“She saved me first, you know,” Alicia slid down the wall and took a seat, staring at the boat that would take her to shore if only she could make herself do it, if she wasn’t afraid of finding Elyza turned. “She swept in and just… fought. Now she’s saved all of you, and I just… Who’s going to save her?” 

“I don’t think she needs saving,” he grinned, remembering the sight of the blonde massacring an entire squad of those monsters without really blinking. 

“Yeah,” Alicia sighed. “She does.” 

Quiet and still unsure, Aden sat down, crossing his legs beside Alicia. He stared at the water, at the boat, at anything else but the girl beside him because he found himself unsure of what it all meant, but still, he felt obligated to be there. 

All the while, Alicia runs her hands along her cheeks, over her eyes, hiding there, just as unsure of what it all means, and still obligated to be there, as well. 

“Do you think she’s a superhero?” he asks in the dawn, earning a chuckle that comes against her own will. 

“Do you?” 

“Yeah,” Aden nods, still amazed, still with hair that grew too quickly and became shaggy too quickly. “Amazing fighter, brave, tragic backstory. It’s all right there. And I read a lot of comics.” 

“Tragic backstory?” 

“Yeah, you know, all superheroes have one,” he explained as if her questions were ridiculous. “Batman had dead parents. Superman was adopted. Spiderman’s uncle died. And then they devote themselves to helping the helpless.” 

“Do they ever get happy endings?” 

“I don’t know,” he shook his head, really thinking about it. “They’re basically always miserable.” 

“Sounds like her,” Alicia grinned. “I guess that makes you her sidekick then.” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, smiling wider. “Kind of does, I guess.” He thinks it over quite seriously, wondering if Elyza, the woman who saved him, who he talked with for maybe an hour tops, truly is a superhero, and if since monsters exist, if it doesn’t seem completely plausible. “She loves you, you know?” 

“Yeah,” Alicia sighed, nodding and wiping her cheek before squaring her jaw. “I know.”

* * *

“Tell me again,” Elyza asks, adjusting the gun beside her as she drives through the streets. 

“Well,” the passenger chuckles. “It’s just been so crazy. My family is supposed to be in Sacramento, but I haven’t been able to get there.” 

“But what has you stuck here?”

“Can’t seem to make it anywhere to save my life.” 

Elyza nods and bites at the inside of her cheek. She has a feeling, and that alone isn’t enough, but she has a feeling she just can’t shake. She had feelings with the others, but none of them made her feel revulsed, made her uneasy. But something about this guy, the guy sneaking around the docks, the guy who was too happy for his own good, he made her uncomfortable in a worrisome way.

“What have you been doing?” he asks, knee jumping anxiously. 

“Killing as many of those things as I could. That’s about it.” 

“Have you seen any other survivors?” 

“Not for a while,” she lies. “Last group I saw was a kid and a woman, heading down south. Running away from some guy who tried to sell them.” 

“It’s a shame what this world has made people become. True monsters we all are, now,” he nodded, looking out of the window. “What happened to them?” 

“I’m not sure. I tried to send them somewhere safe.” 

“You know somewhere?” his ears picked up just as she parked the truck in the familiar parking lot with the embers of the recently burned pile of monsters. “I’m guessing this isn’t it.” 

“You’re the guy, rounding up survivors,” she sighed. 

“Listen, it’s not me,” he swallowed and moved for the door. He found it locked and tossed his bag at her before unlocking it and making a break for it. 

He makes it a few feet before a pain shoots through his let and he registers that he’s been shot. With the light behind her, he just looks up in the evening at her shadow. 

“There’s still order and law and goodness,” Elyza informed him as he held his hand over the seeping wound. “Kidnapping kids, selling them to survive. That can’t happen, mate.” 

“We’re all monsters now,” he repeats, spit dripping out of his mouth as he gnaws on his tongue against the pain. 

“I reckon you’re right,” she nods, lifting her arm, the gun flashing slightly in the light. She watches his eyes grow bigger at the sight. 

“So you’re judge, jury, executioner now?” 

“Yeah,” she nods. “Someone has to be. I bear it so they don’t have to.” 

“The guys I work for will find you.” 

“Good,” Elyza grins. 

“How long do you think you can do this?” he chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Until I save the world.” 

The shot rings out and for just a moment, the world is silent. Elyza digs into her pocket and pulls out a cigarette. Lighting it, she enjoys the feeling of it, and shoves her gun back in its holster before getting back into her truck.

* * *

The sun snarls directly overhead in the mean kind of noon that comes despite the remaining haze from the half-dead city. Elyza drags her forearm across her forehead, the mix of blood and sweat forming a nasty mess on her arm that she wipes on her pant leg.

The remnants of the small group of walkers pile up to her shoulders as she pulls the bandana down from nose before pulling off the thick gloves. The killing them part was always more fun than the clean up, but here she was, again.

From her back pocket, she pulls out a lollypop and with another movement, pulls out her lighter, lighting the wrapper and tossing it into the pile, igniting it instantly. 

Forty-one more notches to go on with the count, she observes, leaning on the shovel. The parking lot is quiet, though the birds drift lazily above. 

Just as lazily, she hops on the bike and revs it, heading back towards home. So robotic is the feeling that she barely has time to think, instead shifting her entire being into autopilot, a miraculous thing, but still terrifying in its own way. 

By the time she puts the motorcycle under the roof by the shed, the light is disappearing out over the ocean, of which she is grateful, because it means less time she will be compelled to sit on the back porch and search for any sign of life out there. 

Before she twists the handle, she knows what is waiting inside. She could never articulate how she knows, or even why, but still, she knows, as if the air is different, as if the world has shifted in subtle ways, as if her very body can sense it. 

“The whole time,” that familiar voice greets her as soon as the front door closes behind Elyza. “You’ve been here the entire time.” There is no mistake thing tightness of the sound, the anger in the voice. 

“You look good, princess,” Elyza grins, as hard as it is. 

“You left.” 

“I had to, for–”

“Don’t.” 

“Did you get the chickens?” Her smile makes Alicia mad, makes her hurt even more in the same way it makes her feel like she can breathe again.

Alicia puts down the book, standing from the couch. They orbit each other, like atoms, buzzing and fretful of each other. Elyza wants to touch her, to kiss her hair, to smell the sunshine that’s browned her skin. But she can’t bring herself. She has dirty hands and has done terrible things to save her world. 

“I missed you, gorgeous,” Elyza offers weakly, waiting for the storm she can see perched on the girl’s shoulders. Gone is the scared girl she picked up with a bump on her head, and now, replacing her, is a live wire. “You shouldn’t have come though.”

“I thought you were dead.” 

“Surprise.” 

“You left,” Alicia pushes her shoulders. Elyza just lets her head drop, guilty and sorry, deserving of that and so much more. “You left me.” Elyza doesn’t do anything. She lets Alicia push her, yell, cry. “I had to come find you because I cant take it. I can’t.” 

She grows mad, grows so upset she pushes Elyza, slaps her shoulders until the blonde grabs her wrists. 

“You made me love you,” she accuses, fighting as best she can. Elyza just holds her through the struggle. “And you left me. Alone. I didn’t know if you were dead or gone or… I don’t know. But you’re just here. As if we never happened. As if I never existed.”

“I had to,” Elyza pleads, pulling wrists. “I am a bad person, but I can’t protect you, and be with you.” 

“Then don’t protect me,” she shakes her head. “Don’t. Just be with me.” 

“I don’t know ho-”

Alicia kisses her, has nothing else left to do, can’t stand it anymore. Against her better judgement, Elyza softens, relaxes into it, pulls her wrists harder and keeps her close, holds her breath and feels like she’s dying, the pain is that delicious. 

“You left,” Alicia swallows and shakes her head. Her palms are flat against Elyza’s chest, the breath mingling, eyes closed. She pushes and pulls and is unsure which she means more.

“I wasn’t going to let you choose.” 

“You idiot. There’s no choice. I want you. I want all of you. I want the big messy disaster that you are, because I know you.” 

“You don’t.” 

“I do.” 

“I’m no good for you, kid.”

“Tell me you don’t want me.” 

“I…” Elyza swallows and drops Alicia’s wrists though the hands remain planted on her chest. Slowly, they move up her neck, grasp her there, thumbs touch jaw and she closes her eyes, neck bending and forehead dropping forehead. 

“You can’t.” 

“I did this for you.” 

“Let me teach you to stay.” 

“You shouldn’t have come.” 

“You’re coming back with me, or I’m staying here,” Alicia informed her. “You said you loved me. That’s it. You and me,” she lifted Elyza’s head, moved so she could find her eyes. “Good or bad or whatever in-between you think you are, I can be your home, where none of it matters.” 

“You can’t,” Elyza shakes her head and pulls her chin away. For the first time, even with bullet holes and broken bones and self-cauterizing, without any inkling of physical pain, Alicia sees tears on Elyza’s cheeks. “You can’t.” 

It was cowardly, to leave in the middle of the night, but it was damn sure easier than this. 

“I can,” she promises, taking the blonde’s cheeks in her palms. “Let me.”

“My hands are so bloody. I just want to feel light again,” she whispers. Alicia feels her heart break when bluer-than-blue eyes look at her desperately. “It gets easier. The more you pull the trigger. It gets easier. It’s so easy.” 

“Let me,” Alicia holds up Elyza’s head, her hands on her temples. 

“You want everything, but I can’t give you all of me. I’ve done so many things,” she shakes, cheeks stained with rivers. She holds her hands between them and stares at them as they tremble. Eyes wide, she stares, and her head wobbles. “I left to free you, before you had to have this.” 

“Let me,” Alicia whispers, taking Elyza’s palms and kissing each. She places them on her heart before running her fingertips over tear-stained cheeks. “Let me be home for you.” 

“You can’t.” 

“I can,” she swears. “You leaving is killing me. Give me it. I want all of it.” 

“I have to save the world,” she protests weakly, eyelids heavy and chest sunken. 

“You did. You saved the world.” 

Too tired and too honest, Elyza just stands there as Alicia tentatively hugs her, clutches her shoulders, digs her nose in there. As terrible as she feels, as exhausted and miserable as the past few weeks have been, for the first time since the boat, she feels real, and alive. 

Feeble as it is, she wraps her arms around the girl who holds her up, and inhales as if she’d finally made it from the bottom of the ocean. 

“It’s okay to want to stay,” Alicia sighs. “We’ll figure out the rest.” 

Too tired to argue, Elyza allows herself to believe it.


	7. Chapter 7

The smell of the salt of the sea woke her. It popped with every drop of rain that plucked at the surface, kicking up kernels of ocean that mingled with breeze and the storm, wafting through the open porthole, dripping from the railings and sails and ropes. As wonderful as it was, she dug her nose into the pillow and inhaled the heat of bodies, the lingering hint of skin, and that clean, soapy remnant from freshening up before bed. Eyes closed and ears not working just yet, the taste and smell of a morning storm and lingering bruises made her purr as she stretched in the sheets.

It isn’t until Alicia discovered the emptiness of the bed that her eyes shoot open and her breathing hitches.

Lips meet her spine, soothe the tensions that riled through her heckles as she felt her entire body stiffen at the very notion that she’d be left, again, by the same beautiful idiot who couldn’t fathom feelings.

Though her heart can’t stop beating erratically, she smiles as warm lips keep their steady pace around her bones. A weight slips back into bed, blanketing her as the storm kicks up and the rain comes in a downpour. Alicia could be in the midst of a hurricane and not care at the moment.

“You scared me,” she whispers. 

“I wanted to wake you up.” 

“You were gone.” 

“Someone had to batten down the hatches. We have a good little storm brewing out there, Captain,” Elyza drawls, lips hitting skin with every syllable. 

“You cant do that.” 

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise,” she vows, burrowing into the mess of sleepy hair on the pillows and neck. 

“Still.” 

She wants to apologize, to promise harder, to insist, but she can’t entirely bring herself to do it just yet. She can prove it in other ways, because words are tricky little bastards and she can never speak them properly. Instead, she just gets tangled in them. Instead, Elyza kisses the soft spot on the corner of skin below ear before dropping her nose to shoulder and inhaling deeply.

“If I left, you’d just follow, and defeat the purpose of me trying to keep you safe.” 

“That’s true. I learned from the best.” 

Lips move to her shoulder as Elyza shifts. Alicia refuses to open her eyes. Not when its raining and not when her blanket is in love with her. She wants nothing more than to be squished into the bed by the blonde forever, the weight a welcome anchor that somehow kept her sane, made her feel real for the first time in a long time.

“Do you remember burgers and fries?” Elyza whispers, closing her eyes and pressing her cheek flat against skin as the girl beneath her adjusts and closes her own as well. A chuckle erupts in her pillow.

“Ice cream and nachos.” 

“Now you’re just teasing.” 

“Do you think things will be normal again?” 

“I think we’re building a farm in the middle of the ocean propped up on giant barges with an armada of boats acting as a neighbourhood,” Elyza sighs. “We might be the new normal.” 

“I wanted to show you around today,” Alicia yawns. “But I think we should stay in here instead.” 

A hand moves along her ribs, sneaks around her hip. She feels her hips move of their own accord as lips dance back along her shoulder, the weight shifting above her.

“I’m sure your family has words for me.” 

“Shh,” Alicia hushes. “I don’t care about any of it. You and me, right?” 

“Yes. A world of two.” 

“Stay in here with me,” she pulls Elyza’s hand, wrapping her tighter, like tugging a blanket protectively against a nightmare. “Tell me you love me. Better yet,” she rolled over. Her legs parted, pulling Elyza closer as her hands moved up her neck. “Show me.”

* * *

The rain won’t stop, and neither do the inhabitants of the bed. It is well into afternoon before either could be bothered to leave the cabin, and even then it is only because Alicia is antsy to show off the things she’s managed to accomplish in Elyza’s absence. That and she is quite certain everyone is aching to see her, though she’d never tell her that.

The rain slowed until it was only spitting. Elyza slung her arm around Alicia’s shoulders and the girl held her forearm like a scarf around her, proud and happy and clinging despite herself, despite the bad weather, in spite of her mother’s dismay.

“You built this?” Elyza surveyed the structure on the flattop, amazed and intrigued. The longs bins and rows of tilled soil stretched out far with the occasional little green sprout peaking through.

“Well. Nick helped.”

“Not half bad considering a smackie and a princess put it together,” Elyza grins, surveying the chicken coop. She earns a jab in the ribs. “I’m glad you got my presents.”

“You have to stop calling him that.” 

“When its not true, I will.” 

“You know what I found funny?” Alicia waxes as Elyza stares at the birds. “Even after you left you spent your time recruiting the people we need and sending supplies. You’re not too good at disappearing. What would you have done if I hadn’t come to get you?” “

“Moved on eventually,” she shrugs nudging a post with her boot to test it.

“You’re lying.” All she gets is that damn smirk to let her know she’s right about the blonde’s true character.

If she were a betting woman, she’d put as much money as she could on Elyza having spent the rest of her life sending her chickens from the shore, and no one could have convinced her otherwise. Instead, Alicia simply shows off her chickens, like a never-wilting bouquet that the blonde sent her.

“Elyza!” Aden calls, sprinting across the farm once he noticed the girls were on the deck. He’d taken over the loft where the crane sat on the edge of the barge, taking Elyza’s words to heart when she told him she entrusted him with being lookout. 

“Seems I’m not your biggest fan anymore,” Alicia teases. “He talks about you like you’re the Second Coming. Even trains so he can be like you.” 

Unsure of what exactly the emotion is that she’s feeling, Elyza swallows and feels herself furrow all over. She feels like the skin of her chest is too tight, suddenly, but can’t do anything about it. 

“You’re still my favorite person to rescue,” Elyza decides, still unable to take a breath. The little boy is so excited to see her, she’s not certain anyone has ever looked at her that way, simply grateful that she exists. 

“Are you staying?” he asks, out of breath and grinning despite it. 

“I suppose I have to with the way you keep watch,” she debates, once more putting her arm over Alicia’s shoulders. “This one managed to sneak out without you noticing.” 

“No, I knew she was going,” he shrugs.

“I gave you one job, mate,” the blonde shakes her head and complains. 

“Go easy on him, babe. He was worried. We were all worried.” 

“Still,” she grumbles, kissing Alicia’s temple. “Oh well. I heard you’ve been training. Is that right?” 

“Yeah,” Aden grins even more, nodding eagerly. “I use that knife you gave me.” 

“You any good?” He nods. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll show me?”

“I’m really glad you’re back,” he sighs, hugging her tightly, taking her a bit by surprise. For a moment he just holds on, and only as he is about to move, does he feel her hand pat his back awkwardly, unaccustomed to such displays.

“Okay, alright,” she mumbles when he pulls away. “Go read a book or something. Go on,” she nudges his shoulder. “It’s too rainy. You’ll catch a cold.”

By this time it is pointless though. Other eyes appeared tentatively, wondering if the rumours that ran through the small little village on the water were true. Everyone who was there, who found solace in this place, owed it all to the one girl who at some point appeared out of no where and saved their lives.

“Alright, let’s not make this a thing,” Elyza grumbles. “You did this on purpose.

“I swear I didn’t,” Alicia grins at the frown her scarf now displays. “But you saved all of them. They might have something to say about it.”

For just a moment, Elyza surveyed the few random heads that popped up, milling about their days in the dreary weather. She wanted nothing more than to hide, but she nodded to a few and squeezed Alicia tighter. That part helped, for some reason.

“Long time, no see, Blondie,” the girl with the brace greeted them as she hobbled across the deck, tools slung over her shoulder. “Thought for sure you’d be a goner by now.”

“You and me both,” she agrees. “I see you helped them out a bit.”

“I dabbled in a few things,” Raven explains, surveying the expanse of some of her work. “You back for good?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because this one talks about you like you’re a legend, and well, the rest of us saw you in action. Can’t say I don’t feel any less safe with you around.”

“I’m here,” Elyza shrugs. “That’s all I know. We’ll see you around.”

“Come by sometime. I want to talk about a few things with you.”

With just a nod, Elyza tugs Alicia, ducking her head slightly against the rain and the glances of everyone else. It became too much, too quickly, and hurrying, she decided it was time to go back the safety of the boat.

Back in their cabin, there wasn’t this problem of people wanting to thank her, or look at her like a savior. There was just one girl, one set of eyes, that looked at her like she was human, and at the end of the day, that’s all she wanted, all she really needs.

“Hope you’re not back to try to string me up again, old man,” Elyza pulls a lollypop from her back pocket as they climb onto their boat and see the familiar form waiting, outlined with the familiar rifle on his shoulder.

“It is good to see you,” he simply holds out his hand. Elyza looks at it warily, twirling her sucker before taking it firmly. “You did good work, sending us these supplies and people.”

“Did you string them up, too? Or am I special?” He smiles to himself.

“Maybe you let that thing go,” Alicia suggests.

“Never,” the blonde winks. “Forgive, but don’t forget.”

“You don’t forgive either.”

“Too true,” she nods. “What do you want from me now? You can tell whoever wants to exile me I’m right here, and I’m not going without a fight this time.”

“I never wanted that.”

“Still.”

“Welcome home,” he offers. “We have work to do tomorrow.”

“I’m retired.”

“Me too,” he smiles and goes to leave. “I’m glad you are back.”

Still with the rain coming down, still with it soaking through pants, Elyza and Alicia stand on the deck of the boat and watch the welcome wagon disappear.

“Your best friend was heartbroken when you left.”

“He’s not my best friend.”

“He’s the only person you tolerate beside me.”

“You’re my best friend,” Elyza explains, following her into their home and out of the rain.

“I can’t be your best friend. I’m your girlfriend.”

“Then Aden’s my best friend.”

“He worships you, he can’t be your best friend.”

“You have a damn lot of rules about this,” she grumbles, earning a chuckle.

“Shut up and get out of those wet clothes.”

“I could learn to like rules,” she nods eagerly, following the half-clad girl towards the back of the cabin where the bed was still a rumbled mess from earlier in the day.

Nearly tripping as she tried to get undressed in the cramped space and with much haste, Elyza smiles when she meets Alicia, naked and waiting standing at the foot of the bed.

“You want to be my best friend?” she whispers as the blonde stands close, their skin shivering at the dampness between them.

“Nah, I already have one. He’s a surly old man.”

“Fuck, I love you,” Alicia shakes her head, pushing her body against her girlfriend’s. “You saved us, you make me happy, you’re funny, and happy, and romantic, and just… You’re mine.”

“You swearing is my new favourite thing,” Elyza decides, pushing Alicia onto the bed.

“Fuck.” Her hands dig into the muscles of her shoulders and Alicia decides she’ll swear all she can to get this reaction.

* * *

The routine came, kind of. It came with the simple way that days keep passing and life keeps happening. But Alicia noticed it first when she looked up one day from reading on the deck of the boat and catching Elyza showing Aden something with the knife. It was a simple moment, but one she realized she saw before, and thus it became normal. 

It lulled her into a sense of security, that maybe the rolling stone was going to stay, that things could be this kind of normal. It became something innate and understood, that Elyza was there for her. Elyza was her’s. She thought she would doubt it, but there was something different, now. There was an understanding and a peace with it, that things changed and this was there home. Before, Elyza left because she wanted to protect her, but now, Alicia knew she stayed to do the same thing. 

There wasn’t one moment that Alicia let herself really consider Elyza leaving again. It wouldn’t happen, and she couldn’t place why, she could one know that it was certain. This was life now, and as bleak as it could have been, at times, it felt as if the whole world went to hell just for them. Alicia had faith in her. For some reason, she couldn’t quite shake, she just trusted this strange Australian girl who played with knives and reread the same novels like they were going to be lost tomorrow. Because at night, Elyza would ran her fingertips over Alicia’s face and make her feel real. And she’d kiss her knee and thigh and tell her she was never going anywhere but without words. And that was all that mattered. 

When they were around everyone else, it was tougher to get her to let her guard down, even still, but to Alicia it wasn’t terrible, just that she got to keep a little part of Elyza to herself. And when moments of the caring, funny, witty girl came out to someone else, she is nothing more than proud. 

“Tomorrow, can we fire the guns?” Aden asks, curious and excited, never more than a few feet from Elyza, becoming one with her shadow, much to the pseudo-chagrin of the target. 

“If you finish your school work,” she grunts, adjusting a line from some of the sails. 

“Why do I have to do school work? I don’t need to know about World War I anymore.” 

“The world may have ended, but we have to be a little normal,” she explains, tossing one of her last cigarettes, all burned down to the butt, over the side as she twists and moves along the side of the boat. 

The evening sun came down golden, making the water calm and the wind chill. Alicia watches from the large yacht across from them, distracted by the movements of the blonde that she caught as she walked out from the living room and helping her brother. 

“I swear, you look at her and it’s like you’ve never seen anyone else exist,” Ofelia teases, carrying a box of clothes to be sorted on her hip. 

“What?” Alicia shakes her head and feels the smile that somehow appeared on her lips fade as she furrows, attempting to decipher words. She clears her throat and tucks the books she’s carrying into her chest. 

“That girl. You look at her like she’s the sun.” 

“She’s great.” 

“I watched her murder someone with her bare hands and a rock,” her friend drops the box. 

“Are you still on that?” Alicia sighs and grabs a few more things. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to un-see it.” 

“I promise you that its no where close to the worst thing we’re going to see in our lives now.” 

Across the way, Elyza sits on the railing of their boat, showing Aden something with the ropes, helping him as he attempts to recreate whatever knot she makes. Alicia adjusts her hair, pulling it up and wiping at the sweat forming on her neck. 

“How can you trust her after she left?” 

“Is this about her or me?” 

“I’m your friend,” Ofelia shakes her head. “And she left you. I saw you after.” Alicia watches Elyza talk quite seriously to her little shadow, as if they are in a serious debate over something, as if they are having an important talk. “You want to pretend that you’re tough, but it broke you.” 

“I appreciate the concern, but you’ve got it wrong,” Alicia grins. “When she left, I was gutted, but it changed things. Changed my priorities, and I figured out who I was and what I wanted. She’s never broken me.”

“Do you think you love her?” 

“Yeah.”

“Its hard for us, who don’t. Just so you know.”

“What’s hard?” 

“Having her around.” 

“She’s slow to warm up,” Alicia agrees. “But you’re my friend, and you will.” 

There isn’t room for debate, and as much as she wants to, Ofelia simply bites her tongue and thoughtfully nods, taking a seat and exhaling. Alicia doesn’t wait for more, for another round of questions, for anything else, she simply grabs her book and begins the trek to her home. 

It was a fight, with her mother, one with Travis. One they lost because as much as everyone refused to admit it, Alicia knew that Elyza was their people now. Pragmatic and suddenly feeling older than she was, Alicia wonders if maybe she was born to survive. 

“Alright, you two,” Alicia sighs as she drops everything off on the bench of her home. “Enough fun for today, I think. Aden, you have homework.” 

“See, told you,” Elyza taunts the kid. “We were just having a heated debate over plot and stuff in literature. Some book… stuff… right? Tell her.” 

“She things Batman is an underrated superhero, but he’s clearly overrated.” 

“A true meeting of the minds.” 

“Someone has to educate this kid.” Elyza smiles as she earns a shake of the head from the girl. There are parts of this new life that don’t bother her, and Alicia’s smile was one of them. “Get home and help Indra. Don’t give her any trouble tonight and we’ll see what we can do about training in the morning.” 

“And read an actual book, not just comics,” Alicia offers, ruffling hair as the kid mopes and complains. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “I’ll see you in the morning. Bye, Alicia. See you, Elyza.” 

In an instant, he’s moving into the small raft and making his way back to his home, a small boat on the other side of the platform with his teacher. Alicia feels Elyza’s arm sling over her shoulder. 

“They grow up so fast,” she sighs. 

“He looks up to you.” 

“Because he’s short.” 

“You’re a good person,” Alicia rolls her eyes and tilts her head to kiss Elyza’s cheek, gently rubbing at the spot with her thumb. “In case you had any doubt.” 

In another life, Elyza’d be embarrassed by how much a simple kiss on her cheek made her blush. Though less than that she still feels a burning in her neck at the admission as Alicia pulls away, humming to herself as she goes about her work. The blonde stands at the edge of the boat and watches until she sees Aden made it home alright.

* * *

The routine came suddenly and before she had a chance to fight against it, and even if she tried, it would have come anyway. Elyza doesn’t even notice it until the disruption comes in the form of a trip to the shore for a few supplies. 

Her days are spent working, fishing, doing things with her hands and trying to make sure they can survive a few more months. It occurs to her one night, that the end of the world might be the best thing that ever happened to her. Minus the murder. All in all, her life was coming together in a way that it never did when things were normal. She found herself, in the middle of the night unable to sleep and doing some personal accounting. A beautiful, sweet, honest-to-goodness absolutely stubborn, high-maintenance, and wonderful girl who liked to do this thing with her tongue that made Elyza beg. A house with no bills. No debt. Food in her belly and growing on her farm. A best friend who didn’t require anything from her but quiet and her expertise in hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship. A shadow of a kid who was the annoying little brother she never wanted, but reluctantly enjoyed. A family, of sorts. A community, of sorts. 

In the middle of the night, she ran through the list and felt Alicia sigh against her neck before digging her nose into the skin there in her sleep and for some reason, the End of Days was weirdly enough, a blessing. All profit, as far as she was concerned. Minus the murder. 

The days became filled with work, upon her return. The days were spent figuring out how to survive, while the nights were filled with stories and games with the people around her, and when that was done, when the moon was high, they were filled with a girl who had eyes like a forest and looked at Elyza like she were a wildfire, ready to consume and nurture and love. 

“I think a cow’s a good idea,” Alicia shrugs, reaching for something in the cabinet as Elyza laces her boot and watches long, bare legs move through the confined space. 

“We can’t feed a cow.” 

“Do you think we could one day?” 

“I honestly doubt it.”

“What about a goat?” 

“They have weird eyes.” 

“Babe.” 

“Don’t you want a kitten or something?” 

“Yes, but I can’t milk a kitten,” Alicia rolls her eyes. “I think something that produces milk would be good.” She slides into her girlfriend’s lap, knowing full well what her half-naked state will produce. 

“Woman, let’s do a tally here,” the blonde doesn’t disappoint, growing agitated. “I saved your life– twice– stole a boat, braved the seas, survived torture, got you chickens, got you a barge, found crops, and still, you want a goat.” 

“You knew what you were getting into,” she shrugs, grinning simply as her fingers gently toy with neck and shoulder. 

“Hopefully we can find a better rig in San Diego. Then, the sky’s the limit.”

“You think so?” 

“If we can find a big one, one with living quarters on board, and that is meant for long term use out here, yeah,” the blonde nods. “We will really be set up.” 

“You must really love me.” 

“That’s what you keep telling me,” Elyza smiles, kissing the freshly woken girl in her arms. “I have to go. Strand wanted to show me something.”

“Ask him what he thinks about a cow, and then try goat.” 

“We’re not–” her argument is stifled by a kiss. 

“I have to go feed my chickens.” 

The cabin on their boat was small, was quaint, was impossible to move around but still it was the best home Elyza knew. By the time she makes it to the large boat at the center of the community, the sun is hazy over the horizon. Despite the chill that has come, that arrives every morning and refuses to be burnt off despite the sun, she refuses to wear a coat, raging her own war against the passing of time into winter. 

“How do you live with so much space?” she mutters, climbing to the next with the electronics and maps. 

“Comfortably,” he deadpans, not looking away from the monitors. “It took you long enough.” 

“I didn’t know we had a nautical emergency.” 

“We do.” 

“Shut up,” she sighs, playing with one of the instruments she isn’t sure exactly what its purpose is. “We still have a few days for San Diego. But I think we should leave–”

“Look at this,” he interrupts, not paying attention to her words. She follows his finger on the monitor to a blip on the edge of the screen. “It keeps coming and going, never coming any closer, and playing on the edge of radar.” 

“We saw the whales that did the same thing last week,” she shrugs. 

“This isn’t a whale,” he turns to her and watches the mental gymnastics she does to try to play dumb but can’t bring herself to do it. “We’re not alone out here. If anything, we’re being stalked.” 

“How long?” 

“Two days.” 

“We should go closer, take the raft out.” 

“That’s what I was thinking. Tonight.” 

Elyza sighs and looks out the window in the direction in question, wondering if she can trick herself into seeing something. 

“Who have you told?” she asks. 

“No one.” 

“Good.” 

“You should keep it to yourself.” 

“Yeah. Tonight. You and me.” 

“Agreed.” 

For a long while, both are silent. One stares at the horizon, blinding herself on the pale blue of the sun and the water, seeing ghosts and mirages on the edge of their world. The other stares at a monitor, watching the blip appear and disappear every few minutes. Both understand what it could mean. 

“How did you decide who to send to us?” 

“I don’t know,” Elyza shrugs. “Just kind of know.” 

“I don’t think there are going to be many more chances for that.”

“Yeah,” she nods, crossing her arms and looking once more at the water, cursing herself for believing in anything related to routine or safety.


	8. Chapter 8

The winds were gone. The calm before the storm whimpered outside with nothing more than a gentle rocking on the waveless sea. Though the summer was quickly coming to an end, the nights refused to calm themselves, were still the humid kind of hot that made the stagnant air a bit heavier than normal. Sweat gathered at the base of her neck, but still, Elyza found herself sitting in the cabin, cleaning the gun, arguing with herself.

The debate was important. The bouncing of her thoughts about her head grew louder in the quiet evening. As everyone returned to their own homes, as the night swelled to the kind of quiet that was unheard of without wind or sea lapping at the sides of boats, she found herself deaf to all else but the internal ramblings of her mind.

Even when Alicia returned, smile in place as she moved about the cabin, stopping only briefly to kissed Elyza’s worried brow, the girl remained at the table, cleaning and reloading. There were two unique trains of thoughts tugging her in half, and both remained heavy on her shoulders. She had to protect Alicia, and she did not want to lie. Both seemed in contradiction to each other.

“We should think of going back up to the cabin. See what else we can find. You know the area, and there are–”

“I have to tell you something,” Elyza interrupted, not listening to the words forming.

“I know you like the cabin, but we can’t stay there.” Alicia moved around still, picking up discarded clothes, readying them for laundry.

“No, listen I have to tell you something,” she sighed, shaking her head. “And you can’t tell anyone else. I’m supposed to tell you things, right?”

“Hmm?”

“Just… just sit,” she tries, closing the small cabin door. “Please?”

Alicia reluctantly takes a seat and smiles at the image of the anxious girl in her home, pacing in the small space as she works through the words in her head before sitting down across from her at the little galley table.

“You have to tell me things, you know that, right? That’s the deal,” Alicia reminded her, noticing the difficulties she was having with the notion. “You and me. We’re the team. That’s what you said.”

“Yeah, of course, yeah. I know that,” she nodded quickly, lying through her teeth.

“What’s making it so hard?”

“If I tell you, then you’ll want to get involved, and that isn’t good. I don’t want you to get involved.”

“Okay.”

“Okay you won’t get involved?” she asked hopefully, almost eagerly. “Or okay I don’t have to tell you.”

“Okay, just tell me.”

With a slight growl of annoyance, Elyza rolled her eyes and pursed her lips before biting the inside of her cheek and attempting to find where to start. Instead, she just took a seat, knit her fingers together, and took a deep breath.

“There is a group that positioned themselves on a tanker primarily out of San Diego. They have a network of people funneling survivors to work for them, do the dangerous stuff. While I was… on hiatus… from this group,” she decided, nodding to herself. “I killed one of the runners. The same group is who was after Aden and Indra.”

“Okay…” Alicia drawled, “So what does that mean?”

“They are currently floating just around our radar reach. Strand and I went out a few nights ago to scout-”

“That’s where you were!?”

“I said-”

“You said you were helping with something.”

“Listen, they’re close, and as soon as they see what we have, they’ll be after us, so we shouldn’t argue about my white lie.”

“I want to though. We can come back to it.”

“Great,” Elyza mumbled.

Neither moved and neither said anything else, instead the words became palpable and hung there as they searched themselves for the answers and questions. 

“What… what do we do?” Alicia asked, furrowing and meeting her girlfriend’s eyes.

“You take everyone we can spare to the cabin. The rest protect home.”

“Protect it?”

“Yeah,” she sighed and held Alicia’s gaze.

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” the girl shrugged. “This is our home. We all stay or we all go.”

“This is serious.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m done running. I’m done being afraid, and if anyone could understand that, I think it’d be you.”

“No. We can’t… I can’t risk it–”

“I’m not a little girl. Stop treating me like I can’t contribute. Like you’re the only one who can make sacrifices. Like you’re the only one who has something to lose.”

The boat rocked and Elyza opened her mouth before she closed it once again. It was quiet inside, but out there, on the dock, everyone was awake and alive, and she was overwhelmed with the extent of it. She looked through the porthole at the extensive stretch of ocean that betrayed nothing but loneliness.

“Okay, but you listen to me,” she finally nodded. “If anything happens, if we get separated, you go to the cabin. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“If anything happens to me, you go. You get out.”

“Why haven’t they come closer if they saw us?” she deflects.

“I don’t know.”

“Who have you told?”

“Just you. We’re going to call a meeting tonight.”

“Thank you,” Alicia whispers as she stands.

She kissed the blonde’s temple as she walks past, dragging her hand along her shoulder, assuring her softly. Suddenly lighter in a new way, Elyza nods and heaves a worried breath, now overcome with thoughts of a different nature that haunted her more fervently.

She hears Alicia in the bedroom and needs air. By the time she emerges outside, the sun wants to set and tries. The wind slips along the water and brings a chill of the impending weather.

By the time she makes it to her best friend’s boat, she’s angry at herself. Angry she gave in, angry that she has to have such conversations, angry about all of it.

“Always on my boat with nothing but troubles following you,” he mutters, knitting a knife through the fishing net as he tries to mend it. Daniel doesn’t even bother to look up as she sits.

“I need a drink.”

“I need to finish this.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms before watching his hands move carefully through the large net. Tired as she was, she just sighed and closed her eyes, tilting her head to the sun.

“It’s going to get cold quick out here.”

“We have another month, maybe six weeks before the chill comes.”

“Do you think we’re safe here?”

“I think we are safer than if we were anywhere else.”

She simply hummed and looked back towards one of the closer boats. Alicia moved to the big boat that Strand still sat atop, waiting and watching. She squinted and looked at the girl who sat with the old man. Even from a distance, Elyza saw her smile.

After the meeting, and with the news, Alicia didn’t notice much of a change in the day-to-day nature of their home. Still the sun rose, and still everyone went about their day, because she had been right when she stood up and said that nothing mattered. They would always be under attack, from everything, but it was impossible to live like that, and she would rather live ready than live afraid.

There was a current of hesitation, of waiting, of patience for the inevitable arrival of visitors that never came, and as each day ran into the next, it gradually became simply normal to think of threats as potential. But they all looked to the founders, to the originals, and they continued their normalcy as best the could.

It was infectious, but Alicia lied when she said she wasn’t afraid. In truth, she was petrified, but she took her solace in the normalcy that almost settled there because Elyza had been honest and told her something, and that was enough for a lot.

There were extra precautions taken. There was scavenged buoys like a net around them. There was watch added to the rotation. Lights and enhanced radar finagled.

The sun was high and angry as winter came in, gentle and easy, while still allowing a few days of warmth that came with bitter nights that reminded them of the inevitable.

She was most grateful for the heat, she decided, as she chanced a look at her girlfriend and licked her lips.

“It’s been three weeks, and nothing,” Ofelia sighed. “Do you think something is coming? Has Elyza said anything?”

“Hmm? What? No,” Alicia shook her head and continued loading the magazine with ammo after the most recent run to the shore proved fairly successful.

Again, she let herself look up across the yard while a certain surly blonde was followed by her human shadow who seemed to talk her ear off. She watched her drag her forearm across her forehead, watched her lift her shirt and wipe the sweat from her neck and chin. Dirt streaked along her arms and neck and Alicia was completely distracted with much more normal thoughts than those that seemed to concern everyone else.

“What?” she said, catching herself hearing sounds and not words.

“My father made a plan, in case things went badly. Do you think it’ll happen?”

“No. We won’t let it.”

“Again, if your charming little murderer hadn’t killed one of their people, maybe we wouldn’t be in this spot.”

The bullets slid into their spots. At the mere mention of Elyza, Alicia looked up to find her again, watched her shoulders hunch over as she worked on one of the rows of food. The sun turned her skin tan and full of heat, her hair growing lighter.

“We’ll always be in this spot. Those who have something to take or have nothing at all. It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s a target.”

“It doesn’t help to make enemies.”

“Everyone’s an enemy.”

“I’m sick of fighting.”

“I’m not.”

“Neither is your girlfriend. She’s going to get us killed at this rate.”

“Why is everyone so fascinated with dying?” she finally spat, shaking her head and tossing the magazine on the table.

“I’m fascinated with staying alive, and it seems like every time we get comfortable, a choice your girlfriend makes puts that in jeopardy.”

“She saved us!” Alicia argues. “She saved people.”

“She put a gun to someone’s head and pulled the trigger.”

“And? I would do the same!”

“There has to be some sort of law, some order, some… some… normalcy.”

Alicia didn’t say anything. She opened her mouth to try but gave up, feeling oddly lost. With a sigh she sat back down and let the anger roll off of her, evolving and picturing the new normal.

“She is the new normal. She’s not going anywhere. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“She’s trouble,” Ofelia shook her head.

The girl beside her didn’t pick up another magazine. She just watched the strong shoulders and the way the girl squinted through the sun to look at the little boy who toyed with the soccer ball beside her. She smiled to herself.

“Do you think she loves me?”

“What?”

“I want to be normal. I don’t want to think about death. I don’t want to think about bullets. I want to be a girl with a crush.”

“What?”

“It’s fall. I should be starting my junior year of college.”

“That is long gone.”

“Do you think she loves me?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because I want… I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“She loves you.”

“I think she’s gorgeous. And she does this thing, when we’re going to sleep, where she has to finish the chapter she’s reading, it is unbelievably annoying, but I love it. I’m telling you these things because I’m sick of hearing about how she’s going to get you killed. If you think so then just go, because she’s not going anywhere.” Alicia finished, proud of herself and relieved at finally saying it. “She would protect you to her dying breath, and if you don’t believe that, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

Ofelia doesn’t say anything. She just keeps putting bullets in the magazine.

“Fine,” Alicia shakes her head and stands. “But you know I’m right.”

With a glance at her friend who remains thoroughly whipped, Alicia ventures across the platform and approaches her girlfriend. From the ammo bins, Ofelia watches them speak and smile and the eyelashes bat and the eyes look at lips. A second later, Alicia disappears. A few more, Elyza follows.

By the time she made it to the cabin, it only took Elyza a few minutes later to meet her.

Still sweaty and gross, in her own opinion, the farmer was surprised to see that glint in her girlfriend’s eye. But there it was, and she was not going to fight it. Leaning against the small table, Alicia grinned and bit her lip as the newest arrival tugged off her shirt and tossed it on the ground.

Without a word, Alicia flung herself towards the shirtless girl, wrapping her arms around her neck and kissing her fervently, stealing the warmth of the sun through her skin, pressed against her own. She felt hands tugging on her own shirt and separated only to let it be pulled off and discarded as well.

Her favorite part was when Elyza lifted her, held her hips and moved them. She loved that her back smashed against the wall as they stayed there, slowly rolling towards the back. As accustomed as they were getting to each other, there were still new things that made them moan.

“You okay?” Elyza asked, pulling away to catch her breath for just a moment.

“I just want to not be afraid. You make me brave.”

All she does is smirk and kiss her again, oddly okay with the turn her afternoon has taken, that has led from weeding to this. Lips move to her neck and Elyza leans back so that Alicia is pushing her into the wall. Her bra is gone a second later, and she is unsure how, but she doesn’t have time to think about it as a mouth encompasses her nipple.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she promises, kissing those lips once more and pushing Alicia onto the bed they shared and tore apart repeatedly. “I mean it.”

“I’ve ruined you,” Alicia smiles, lifting her hips as her pants are pulled off completely. All she gets is an appraisal from the girl atop her and honest nod. “You’d be safer without me.”

“Maybe. But I’d kill a lot of things to have this moment forever,” she promised, running her hands over naked ribs, over chest, over stomach and thighs that she hitched up over her own.

“Do you think you’d love me if none of this happened?”

Lips move to her neck, a hand slips through her underwear. She lifts her thigh to tease the girl atop her, feels her grind into her and sighs as her breathing begins to flutter.

“I think I’d have to fuck you in your mom’s Beamer so she wouldn’t find out about your college experimentation.”

“Hey.”

“What?”

“I’m serious.”

“Honestly? I’d fall in love you full tilt no matter what. I think you’d break my heart,” Elyza confessed. “But the entire world went to shit just so we could be together, and if that’s not something.”

“You’re wrong,” Alicia interrupted.

“About what?”

“She drove an Escalade.”

“Even better. More room,” she whispered, returning to the task at hand.

“Everything is going to be okay, right?”

“Yes.”

“I think you would have broken my heart. I would have fallen so in love with you, you wouldn’t know what to do with it all.”

“Kind of like now.”

“Except now you have to put up with it,” she whispered, kissing her once again.

There were no more words, there was just noise, and the moans and the heat of the day and the skin and the activity that made their muscles burn and ache in delicious ways.

When she relaxed into the bed, Elyza felt Alicia’s weight settle on her back, felt her teeth sink slowly into the muscle of her shoulder, into the ink on her skin that slept there in the lazy haze of sleepy sinews.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she promised, shifting her hips as they jolted slightly when hands slid under her chest and cupped her again, wanting more. “But we can keep doing this as your security blanket if you want.”

“It helps me feel normal.”

“You would have walked into my bar one summer night,” Elyza whispered as hips moved against her own, wanting to go again. “I would have seen you and fallen in love, but played it overly cool. Invited you back to mine. Fucked you til sun up and sent you on your way.”

“Hey.”

“And you, stubborn, loving, kind, incredibly lay that you are, would have shown back up the next night and asked me out. I’d tell you that you don’t want to go out with me, and you’d say you did. I’d crumble because you’re you, and no matter the universe, that’s all that matters. And it’d go well enough. I’d fuck it up at some point, and you’d let me, and still want me. And you’d change me.”

“I wouldn’t,” the blanket protested.

“You would. Not on purpose, not in a bad way. You’d make me stick around. You’d make me be something. That’s what would have happened. You would have dragged me kicking and screaming into love with you. And there is nothing to be afraid of.”

“Nothing?”

“Okay, there is plenty to be afraid of, except me. And that should be enough.”

“Maybe try and convince me again?” Alicia whispers, biting shoulder once more and earning a grin.

“This is so much better than farming.”

Every time she returns to the farm, Elyza is awaiting the despair of finding it destroyed, overrun, possessed and squatted in by someone else. Every time she returns, she is pleasantly surprised and infinitely relieved that it is still almost her’s.

For four days, it rains and storms, and from the little cabin, the small group hunts and gathers and lives on land, completely new. The owner of the house simply misses her girlfriend and finds herself stuck, remembering the first few nights they spent together after the rescue, in what feels like forever ago.

“Not a terrible haul,” Travis nods, looking at the preserving of the meat they caught.

Mostly small game, a few rabbits, some pheasants. The pick of the trip was the deer. The truck was filled and stacked completely, weighed down with the weight of the meat, freshly salted and ready to last the winter. Oddly triumphant, the group surveys it proudly.

“The cabin has not failed me yet,” Elyza nods, closing the tailgate.

“It will be nice to have something that is not seafood,” Daniel agreed.

“We should still make our way down to a few towns on the way back,” Strand surveyed the quiet forest. “Not many chances for us to see what’s changed. We’ll grow unaccustomed to land.”

“Good. I hope we don’t have to come back.”

“We’ll always have to come back,” Elyza sighs and shakes her head, gazing longingly at the motorcycle in the barn. “We have to save the world.”

“That’s your mission,” Daniel shook his head. “I am happy with my new life.”

With a shake of her head, Elyza leans against the truck and watches the rest mill about, packing up the other cars and preparing for the trip back. She doesn’t know how to rectify her unending need to flee with her sudden instinct to protect each of them. The guilt and the imposition forced by the girl who likes to climb atop her in the middle of the night is a burden that she almost welcomes, but can’t stand to admit.

“If anything were to ever happen, this is the best place to meet up,” Travis nods as they begin to finally load up and head out. “Now, we can all get to it.”

“It’s a good place to start over, if need be,” Elyza agrees. “We need a Plan C spot though.”

“Do you think they’re still out there?”

Elyza adjusted the gun in the small of her back before she took a seat in the front of the car, her companion following while the others filled up the truck.

“They’re still out there,” she decides. “They have a pretty extensive network. They had to have found some sort of supply place and stronghold.”

“How do you know?”

“You hear things, when you’re out here. People talk, you see things. The first group I was with kept hearing about this place that had food and running water, and was safe. There are a million stories about it.”

“How can you tell?” Travis asks as they watch the truck back up, following behind slowly. “How do you know who you can trust?”

“You just know,” she shrugs, looking at him for a moment. “Still not sure about you bunch.”

“Package deal, huh?” he smiles.

“I guess. The whole lot of you just blew in and now I’m here.”

“What did you do with the ones you didn’t trust? I mean. You brought us so many. There had to be some that didn’t make the grade.”

“They’re around,” she shrugs again. “Except for one or two.”

“Who were you before all of this?”

“I came to hunt and make sure you all didn’t die because Alicia would hate that,” Elyza shifts uncomfortably, looking out the window at the familiar winding roads.

All too soon, they found the path, found the way to the city, and Elyza tilts her head back, surveying the town and the view of the city from the hills. They are quiet in the car, Travis realizing too late that he asked about four questions more than she could handle, and about three more than she was gracious enough to grit her way through.

She reminded him of a student he once had. Brilliant and way too self-assured to fully know anything at all in the world, but oddly good at whatever came up. It was that hubris that got them into trouble. The problem of it was, for as cocky as she was, Elyza didn’t have the fatal flaw of hubris, or at least, it was already beaten out of her by life. She was older than her years betrayed. If the world wouldn’t have gone to hell, Travis imagined her to be a girl who would have floundered for a few years with wasted potential before finding Alicia, and wanting to be better.” It would have taken a great catalyst to allow her to be great. This lifetime it was the end of the world.

He didn’t mind that she was quiet or favored being alone. He liked that about her. He just needed more.

“I trust you,” Travis finally offers. “I look at you like family.”

“I’m not too good with family, mate,” she doesn’t look back at him.

“Who is?”

“Right.”

“For what it’s worth, at least,” he shrugs. “If I met you before you met Alicia, I would have trusted you.”

“See, terrible judge of character,” Elyza mocks.

“Look at you with a sense of humor.”

“Sometimes.”

“Come on. Tell me one thing about yourself. I don’t know you.”

“I could make anything up, you know.”

“Yeah, well we have about two hours. Spin some yarns for me.”

She couldn’t if she tried, but the peace they achieve was important and just as worthwhile as the the stories she refuses to tell. The trip is punctuated only by the short stop in a relatively small town. By the time they make it to the boats and load up, the sun is setting.

“Base, this is Lunch Crew, on the way back with a big haul. Set the plates and prepare for a salty feast,” Elyza mutters into the radio, grinning to herself as she thinks of the girl waiting in the crows nest for her call.

The first bit of lead sinks in her stomach when she gets no response. As if she can see across the ocean, she gazes out and tries to find the spec of their destination as the shore fades behind them to nothing.

“Base,” she tries again before letting go of the button and waiting for a response. “Ship to Base. We’re on our way back. Do you copy?”

“No answer?” Daniel asks, looking over his shoulder as he stears. She shakes her head. “Is it on the right frequency?”

“Do I have the right frequency?” she mimics, annoyed at the suggestion. “Of course I have it on the right fuckign frequency. I picked it out. I should know the fucking frequency. Crew to Base,” she tries again, waiting and listening to the static.

“Try another.”

“Yeah, I know,” she shakes her head and switches after a few seconds of silence.

Slowly, the radio dial turns, making it whine against the imposition. Careful, Elyza bends her ear and hopes and waits. The boat skims along the water and she feels colder than the freezing weather should warrant.

‘– Home attacked–’ Alicia’s voice rings out, slightly muffled. ‘Stores raided. Chris dead. Indra missing. Be safe. Find us.’ There is a commotion before the quiet, before it starts over once again. ‘Six boats here– Home attacked–’

Before they arrive at what was once their home, the debris appears. Floating hull of a boat, a suitcase, an empty life raft. Books and trash and their entire life that had been built was completely ruined.

There is nothing for them to get back to when they do arrive. Their platform is destroyed and almost perpendicular to where they left it just a few days ago.

As much as she wants to fight, when Daniel kills the light in case of any leftover attackers, she lets him, knowing full well that it was dangerous, already blaming herself for it. It’s not until she sees the way that her home, the closest thing she knew to a home, her little boat with the cabin and the girl and all of her life, is gutted, burned out and still smoldering, teetering on the edge of sinking.

Their home wails, groans against the lapping of the soothing waves. Unsalvageable, it awaits the inevitable. The anger boils up through Elyza’s bones until she can’t imagine every freezing, ever again. Her wrath glows in the dark. Drunk and dizzy with it, she wobbles and she tenses in ways that makes her believe her bones will break.

“Alicia!” she hollers, cupping her hands to her mouth and screaming as loud as she could. “Anyone left!”

After a minute the rest of them join when she leans over, head spinning with the lack of oxygen and effort extended. Their yells fill the area in the quiet night. Until the sun comes up, they drift and yell, hoping for something, yet nothing remains.

“They’re dead,” Daniel finally says. He is the first to verbalize the greatest fears.

“Shh,” she shakes her head.

“We have to go back to shore–”

“Where do we–”

“There’s no way–”

The voices all fade as Elyza listens to the dawn. A second later, she pulls off her jacket, tosses it to the ground, kicks off her boots and dives into the water. She still hears their voices on the boat, but presses on, stopping only to til her ear to the noise.

At the platform, she swims through the mangled bits of steel that once represented her home, she ignores it, focusing on the noise that could be Alicia. The alternative being wrestled by her devotion to the ground like a bear. Once again, she dove under pulling herself along exposed rebar, pushing forward until she was in the maze of it all.

When she came up in a pocket, the voices were faint and almost impossible to hear. She forgets about all else and pushes forward before going still and listening intently for another bang of fist against metal, or metal against metal, or a whimper.

“Alicia!” she calls, sputtering water. Her body tensed despite herself at the cold water. “Alicia! Hello!”

“Elyza?” a voice asks, small and pitiful. Her heart drops and she starts to sink, paralyzed by the realization.

It takes a second, but Elyza grits her teeth and follows the noise.

“Keep talking,” she calls. “I’m coming.”

When she finds her amidst the rubble, Elyza can barely believe she’s alive. But Ofelia remains, half out of the water, sitting on the edge of a half-collapsed floor.

“My leg,” she says, teeth chattering together.

“Give me a second.”

With another big gulp of air, she submerges herself once more, attempting to move the two pieces of metal that have the leg pinned at the shin. Blood sits there and Ofelia screams as Elyza situates herself like a human jack and tries to push down with her legs and up with her shoulders to free the space. When that fails, she comes up, almost out of air.

“A little bit of a pickle you seem to be in,” Elyza pushes hair from her face. “You okay?”

“Is it broken?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“You’ll have to break it for sure to get it out.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“They just came, the night after you left. We fought back–”

“Where’s Alicia?”

“I don’t know. They took some. She tried to get us out, made me leave through the bottom. She went back to send a message. I don’t know.”

The tears started despite the shivering, and Elyza snorted and looked away, unable to handle it, unable to think, absolutely hating that Ofelia was not her person.

“Let’s get you out of here and then find the bastards that did this, yeah?”

“I should have stayed up there… done something.”

“Sounds like there was nothing to do. This is going to hurt.”

With no more notice, the blonde dipped under the water and wretched what she could, feeling her very muscles start to hurt with the effort. Even under water she could hear the scream of anguish.

From the boat, the scream could be heard at a much lower rate, but it was certainly heard. The onlookers panicked, paced, tried to maneuver the boat towards the opening Elyza disappeared into, moving around to the exposed underside of their home. In the tangled mess of wires and pipes and fallen walls and debris, they could not make out a thing. So they waited for more noise.

It took twenty minutes to maneuver the injured girl through the maze and into relatively open ocean. It took another five for the boat to spot them at the other end of the tunnel.

Shivering and in pain, Ofelia tries to catch her breath as her father takes her up into his arms and hugs her tightly. Elyza stands on the boat, dripping and chest heaving from the effort and disappointment. Her teeth chatter against the cold.

“You can’t just go jumping into water!” Travis yells.He wraps her in a blanket though she shrugs him away and holds it tightly around her. “Of all the irresponsible–”

“She needs a doctor.”

“You’re going to need one. Go get out of those clothes.”

“Easy. I’m spoken for,” Elyza sasses, pulling her pants off and pulling the blanket tighter. “Take us to shore. Head south. I’ll tell you where.”

“We can’t–”

“She needs a doctor, and we need land.”

“What.. Where are we going?”

“We have to start looking. They got a two day head start.” Nick shook his head, handing her another towel. “They’re alive.”

“Where do we even start?”

“We need to talk about it.”

“Land. Doctor. Cabin. Find her,” Elyza explains, as if that is all that is needed.

“Just hold on,” Travis held up his hands, pacing slightly.

“You know someone who can help?” Daniel meets her eyes.

“Where do we start looking?” Nick chimes in.

“Land. Doctor. Cabin. Find her,” Elyza chants, ignoring them.

All she needs is a list. She can do a list. A small, manageable, important list. She wants to turn on Ofelia and ask her a million questions, but instead, the rest of them do it for her.

As she shivers and crawls below to change, her mind alternates between her list and half-listening to Ofelia talk about the attack, about how they came and killed a few of their own, how they took the rest, how she escaped.

By the time she emerges again, she is renewed and ready. The world was not ready for the scorched earth method she was about to employ until she found Alicia.

* * *

The sack that acted as a blindfold did not breathe at all. Inside, it grew hot and muggy with her breathing, but still, Alicia did her best not to lose her bearings. She had to keep calm because Aden was sniffling and her mother was yelling while Raven wriggled definitely.

The van bounces along, but is quiet of all speaking from anyone not in their group, though Alicia is certain there are more bodies inside.

“We’re going to be okay,” she whispers to Aden.

“They killed Indra. They killed Thomas and Lance and no one knows where we are.”

“Hey,” she nudges him, moving and turning so that her hand can find his. “Guess what they don’t know?”

“What?”

“We have a superhero on our side.”

“Superhero my ass,” an unfamiliar voice grunted on her other side. “Stop wriggling and shut up. They’ll kill us.”

“Who are you?” Alicia tilts her head. The van finally stops and she tilts her head towards the light as the doors open in the back. There is no answer, and she doesn’t press. “Stay close to me,” she whispers to Aden.

They are tugged out a moment later, lined up, nudged and poked but what she knows have to be gun barrels. Her mother argues and fights, but she remains still and calm, eventually shushing her, a low growl of warning that she gives making her mother balk.

The hoods are not removed, but a voice begins, loud and booming. There is no breeze. It is calm and stagnant, though the chill contrasts with the world inside her own hood. She feels sweat on her forehead, feels it creep down her neck.

“Welcome, to Camp Roberts. I hope you can understand the precautions. Intake can take up to a month.”

A snicker came from the body beside her that she still couldn’t recognize.

“Those who are willing to work will survive. We are here to help. We are here to establish order.”

The hoods came off as the soldier moved down the line. The daylight burned her eyes and she squinted, trying to take all of it in. She looks to her side and sees Aden, his face dirty and stained with soot. Her mother meets her eyes and purses her lips before looking up at the man on the guard post.

Barbed wire encompasses them, and outside of it, nothing but tan and dingy dirt and patches of dead grass.

“Some of you have committed crimes, established illegal operations, fought, killed. You are survivors. We are here to help you survive. We are here to restart the world.”

Alicia peers up at him before spitting on the ground and gritting her teeth.


End file.
